KOTA KINABALU: The Limbahau water treatment plant remains inoperable because of continuing high salinity levels in the raw water.
This is despite moderate rainfall after last week's two-day cloud seeding operations over river catchment areas in drought-hit Papar district.
Papar district disaster management committee chairman Mohd Fuad Abdullah said the salinity level at the plant's intake along Sungai Papar was still high as of 3pm Monday (April 1).
"A relatively high water salinity reading of 3,038 milligrams per litre (MGL) was recorded at Limbahau and (the raw water) still cannot be treated," he said in a statement on Tuesday (April 2).
The plant, with a capacity of 10 million litres per day (MLD), was shut down last month as a drought emergency was declared in Papar district on March 13.
Emergency water supply was then brought in to about 150,000 people in the district, 40km from here.
As Sungai Papar dried up in the hot weather, sea water flowed upstream into the Limbahau plant's treatment pond.
Two cloud seeding operations were carried out over the catchments at Sungai Papar on Thursday and Friday (March 28 and 29), with the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia) recording moderate 4mm rainfall on the second day.
A third operation over Papar scheduled for Saturday (March 30) was not carried out as civil aviation authorities did not give permission to fly over the district.
Mohd Fuad said the treatment plant can only resume operations when the salinity level declines.
Similar cloud seeding operations were also carried over the Tawau and Lahad Datu districts last week.
Rain over the dried-up Pulau Sebatik dam helped restart the water treatment plant on the island in Tawau district. However, operations are minimal.
No further rainfall was recorded after the third day following cloud seeding operations, based on radar echo images released by MetMalaysia.
Average rainfall of between 5mm and 10mm was recorded during the first two days of the operations.
