by Koon Yew Yin
Aliran Monthly Vol 25 (2005): Issue 3

	It is still not too late to consider building a few more reservoirs which should be much cheaper than taking water from Pahang. Koon Yew Yin

After talking with my two college mates - one retired as State Kedah and Perlis water engineer and the other retired as Selangor State water engineer; we are all experienced Chartered Civil Engineers, over 70 years old - we do not believe that Selangor really needs to take water from Pahang. As reported, the total cost will be more than RM 6 billion: RM3.8 billion for the dam and tunnel and RM2-3 billion for the filtration plant. We hope that the Authorities will consider our opinion seriously before implementing the project.

About 30 years ago my company constructed the Upper Pierce Dam across a valley in Singapore thus creating a large reservoir. You can see the big lake when you play golf at the Singapore Island Golf Club. Subsequently three or four more reservoirs were constructed to retain all the rain from Johor and Singapore including their own sewerage water. That is why Singapore has not asked Malaysia permission to construct another pipe line to Singapore, in spite of the fact that their need must have increased many-fold over the years. Their engineers have fully investigated all the methods involving rain collection and retention . Collecting rain for human need is an age-old method practised by our forefathers.

We would like the authorities to engage a creditable consultant to investigate completely all the various methods of retaining excess rain, which normally flows away to waste. The authorities should not simply accept the proposal submitted by someone who has a lot to profit from its implementation.

One possibility is to tap the rainwater from the lake of the SMART project currently being implemented to a designated storage reservoir. The lake has to be emptied now and then to provide space to catch the water from the next flood. This proposal can be further enhanced if water from other sources can also be transferred to the designated storage reservoir to ensure continuous supply of raw water for treatment.

Another possibility is to retain the excess rainwater from the rivers that frequently causes flood in Kuala Lumpur. We are sure that the upstream water is of much better quality than the Singapore sewerage.

It is hard to believe that you can drink up all the water from Sungai Selangor. There are presently three off-takes sucking up water from Sungai Selangor and you can still see there is some considerable amount of flow downstream of the off-takes during dry weather. During rain, which occurs once in every few days, the excess flow to waste is considerable. It is most regrettable that we did not construct a few more reservoirs as what Singapore did to retain all the excess rain-water. It is still not too late to consider building a few more reservoirs which should be much cheaper than taking water from Pahang.

Presently more than 40 per cent of the pipe water is leaked away in Selangor. If all the leaking pipes are replaced/ repaired quickly, the amount of water saved can be considerable. Consequently this RM 6 billion prospect can be postponed indefinitely.

If the authorities still want to implement the project after careful consideration of our opinion, we like all Malaysians would like to see that the whole scheme is properly carried out. We would like to see that the procedures of consultant appointment, prequali-fication of contractors, tender opening, evaluation and award of contracts are transparently and properly carried out.

Furthermore all contractors should be encouraged to submit their own alternative designs besides submitting tenders based on the original design. Very often the successful contractor can offer a better design with significant savings.

I write this in good faith and I trust the authorities will consider this letter seriously. I have no financial interest in any part of this business except to hope to pay a cheaper water rate in the future.

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Koon Yew Yin, 72, a Chartered Civil Engineer, is a former founder director of IJM Corp Bhd and former member of the Board of Engineers, Malaysia, a statutory body to regulate the engineering profession

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