Odour pollution: three S’gor water treatment plants at risk of shutdown, says exco

SHAH ALAM – The Selangor Water Management Board (Luas) has received information about diesel-like odour pollution measuring up to 3 TON detected at the River Monitoring Station (RMS) in Section 3, Bangi, at 11.15am yesterday.

State Tourism, Environment, Green Technology and Orang Asli Affairs Standing Committee chairman Hee Loy Sian in a statement yesterday said the incident was reported by Pengurusan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Air Selangor).

Following that, he said a monitoring operation conducted by Luas together with related agencies such as the National Water Commission (Span) and Air Selangor had investigated several locations to identify the source of pollution.

“Luas has activated the Yellow Code based on the Water Resources Pollution Emergency Manual for a thorough investigation into the area upstream of the inlets, which is at risk of causing the shutdown of the Semenyih 2 Water Treatment Plant (LRA), Bukit Tampoi LRA and Labohan Dagang LRA.

“The estimated distance of the pollution location from the inlets, namely Semenyih 2 LRA, is 6.63km; Bukit Tampoi LRA (18 km) and Labohan Dagang LRA (31.9 km),” he said.

He said several potential sources of pollution had been investigated by Luas in Sg Balak and odour test sampling recorded odours up to 2 TON, while in Sg Sekamat and upstream of Sg Langat, no pollution-related findings were detected, with the odour reading at 0 TON.

He said as of 5pm, there was no more oil-like odour around Sg Balak.

“Meanwhile, Luas is also conducting static monitoring and sampling around the Kg Teras Jernang Bridge with odour test sampling conducted every 30 minutes and readings obtained were around 2 TON, as of 9pm, there was no contamination at the LRA inlet area,” he said.

Hee said Luas and Air Selangor were still investigating the cause of the odour pollution and the frequency of Luas’ odour sampling in Sg Langat had also been increased from one hour to 30 minutes to closely monitor the status.

He said static monitoring and Luas patrols in the Sg Langat area were carried out round the clock to ensure such incidents did not recur and any pollution could be prevented before it entered the LRA system.

Apart from that, he said Luas would intensify 24-hour monitoring operations at major river basins to ensure that pollution incidents did not affect LRA operations. – Bernama, June 10, 2022