By Selangor Journal Team
SHAH ALAM, Feb 2 — Heavy rain yesterday evening led to high turbidity levels at several water treatment plants (WTP) in the state, although swift action by the Selangor Water Management Authority (Luas) prevented their shutdown.
In a post on Facebook, the state agency said it detected extraordinarily high nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) reading of 2238 at the Rantau Panjang WTP late last night, over four times more than the usual reading of below 500.
Subsequent checks at nearby WTPs, namely the Sungai Selangor Phase 1, 2 and 3, found that the NTU readings were also high at between 1,000 and 2,000.
“Based on our observation, the increase in turbidity levels resulted from the heavy downpour at the Sungai Sembah area yesterday evening,” it said today.
Luas said following this, it immediately activated monitoring and mitigation measures in Sungai Sembah, as well as Sungai Selangor, which have been identified to be the source of the pollution.
“Luas promptly coordinated the opening of the river barrage gates and activated the pumping of raw water from the state’s Hybrid Off River Augmentation Storage (Horas) 600 facility and KL Larut water resource pond.
“This is to expedite the flow of turbid water away from the WTPs entrances.”
Luas said it then conducted an hourly analysis of the two rivers, which concluded at 4am after it was found that the NTU readings had fallen below 500.
“No shutdown of treatment plants were reported,” it said.
The state agency said it would continue its investigation in nearby areas today to identify if any human activities had contributed to the pollution of Sungai Selangor and Sungai Sembah.
