COMMENT | Heads must roll in water pollution scandal

COMMENT | Heads must roll after yet another river water pollution scandal. There are no two ways about it.

The people must demand that the head of enforcement, the environment minister, and the Selangor menteri besar bear responsibility for this inexcusable and repeated pollution of Sungai Selangor, and resign forthwith. They must be told in no uncertain terms that we will not accept any more such dereliction of duty that threatens our water supply and our health. 

The MACC must also investigate how a factory can get away with such wanton pollution of our drinking water source for not once but twice.

It is not as if this is a new problem. This has been happening for decades now. In 1999, Save Our Sungai Selangor activists met ministry officials and showed them a map of the water sources in Selangor with illegal factories highlighted around these river tributaries. The officials could only say: “By right, they shouldn’t be there!” So why was there no enforcement of the regulations to safeguard our water sources?

Yes, that was in 1999, although illegal factories had been operating in these river buffer zones for years. Shouldn’t the enforcement agencies, local authorities and state officials be hauled up and held to account by the MACC?

As the minister and his department must surely know, the severity of the water crisis is by no means a new phenomenon. The Selangor state government carried out its populist free water policy in 2014 at a time when the state and other parts of the country were already experiencing a critical water shortage. The justification for building the Selangor Dam in 1999 was the alarmist call that prevailing water sources would run out by 2007.

The water, land and natural resources minister has said that Malaysia's water industry is in “dire straits” and that the country is expected to see its water resources reduced by 20-25 percent between 2025 and 2030. 

The minister added that despite that looming threat, our water industry is not yet equipped to effectively address the water shortage, saying: “It is difficult to meet this requirement as demand is outstripping supply.”

If other countries can rely on recycling river water for their water supply without resorting to building any more dams, is there a good reason why it cannot be done in this country? Do we really need the Papar dam in Sabah? In light of an impending water crisis, why have we not announced an emergency plan for cleaning our rivers and recycling river water?

If we are serious about attracting tourists and breaking out of the mould of a filthy so-called developing country, it is surely time to sustainably clean up all our rivers and drains. If we can build the world’s tallest twin towers, there is no reason why we cannot have the resources to clean up and recycle our river water following best practices in so many other countries. The first most urgent task is to remove all factories from the buffer zones of rivers.

Never forget that the Orang Asli community in Kuala Kubu Baru had to sacrifice their traditional ancestral homes in 1999 for the Selangor river dam because it was considered necessary to meet the water demands of the Klang Valley. 

Selangor lost one of its most pristine white-water rafting sites that was internationally acclaimed as world-class! Since then, taxpayers have had to bear the cost of the dam through indirect taxation. The rising cost of living is but the result of uneconomic projects by the authorities, a burden we are paying for today.

Even if some Malaysians don’t care about the plight of the Orang Asli or the displacement of other indigenous peoples for dam projects, their own discomfort during these unscheduled water cuts should be enough to warn them of an even worse catastrophe in the looming water crises to come.

To demonstrate that we will no longer accept such incidence of wanton pollution of our water sources, we call for the resignation of the head of enforcement, the environment minister and menteri besar over gross dereliction of duty in ensuring the safety of our water sources.

KUA KIA SOONG is Suaram advisor.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.