SHAH ALAM, April 15 — Swift action by the Selangor Water Management Authority (Luas) has prevented the pollution of Sungai Batang Benar in Negeri Sembilan from causing the temporary suspension of the Sungai Semenyih water treatment plant (WTP) on Monday.
Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari said the initiative was taken after the agency had received a report of a fire at a paint factory in Nilai 3, Negeri Sembilan.
“The swift action had prevented the Sungai Semenyih WTP from ceasing its operations. The situation had safeguarded the water sources of the people of Selangor,” he said in a Facebook post yesterday.
On Monday, State executive councillor for environment Hee Loy Sian said Luas had activated the yellow code based on the Water Resources Pollution Emergency Manual for a thorough investigation at the affected area.
He said the distance from the fire scene to the Jenderam Hilir inlet in Sungai Semenyih, Selangor, was about 13.7 kilometres and would take around nine hours for the pollution to reach the inlet at the Sungai Semenyih WTP.
He said odour sampling tests were carried out at three different locations in Sungai Pajam, Sungai Beranang and Sungai Semenyih and the Threshold Odour Number (TON) reading was recorded at zero.
Luas, Hee said, had also taken preventive measures by placing 10 bags of activated carbon in Sungai Batang Benar to prevent odour pollution in raw water.
