Sinar Harian, 11 April 2019


KUALA LUMPUR - Gabungan Persatuan-persatuan Pengguna Malaysia (Fomca) mencadangkan kadar tarif air yang dikenakan kepada rakyat mengikut jumlah penggunaan bagi memastikan golongan berpendapatan rendah tidak terbeban. Timbalan Presidennya, Mohd Yusof Abdul Rahman berkata, kaedah tersebut sama seperti digunakan untuk tarif elektrik yang menetapkan semakin tinggi sesuatu penggunaan maka pengguna juga perlu membayar lebih tinggi. "Fomca berpendapat kerajaan boleh menaikkan tarif air bagi membolehkan perkhidmatan yang lebih baik dapat diberikan kepada pengguna namun kenaikan ini mestilah berstruktur. Bagi rakyat berpendapatan rendah dan sederhana selalunya penggunaan air mereka tidak banyak.

"Bagi golongan berpendapatan tinggi pula penggunaan air mereka lebih banyak, kaedah ini telah digunakan bagi pengiraan tarif elektrik dan kerajaan boleh mengenakan kaedah yang sama," katanya ketika dihubungi Sinar Harian. Semalam, Kementerian Air, Tanah dan Sumber Asli telah mendapat persetujuan daripada enam negeri untuk menaikkan tarif air bagi menjamin kualiti perkhidmatan dan bekalan kepada pengguna. Menurut kementerian, perundingan untuk menaikkan tarif air giat dijalankan kerana kadar berkenaan tidak pernah disemak dalam tempoh 20 tahun. Mohd Yusof yang juga Bendahari Forum Air Malaysia berkata, terdapat kebimbangan harga barang akan termasuk makanan dan minuman naik disebabkan oleh kenaikan tarif air tersebut.

MalaysiaKini, Tuesday, 2 Jun 2020

For almost two months, Malaysians were largely confined to their homes, thanks to the movement control order (MCO). Many were stuck between a rock and a hard place due to their eagerness to get back to work, fuelled by diminishing incomes and prolonged economic inactivity, conflicting with a fear of exposure to Covid-19 which has killed hundreds of thousands globally. So, the residents of Klang Valley might have looked at their water bills between March and April and felt the low or nominal charges made their lives just a little easier in what was a tough time for many.

But, in the past couple of weeks, as the country has begun to ease into the less restrictive conditional MCO, and as new water bills have begun rolling out, some received a rude awakening. The latest bills did not just compensate for any prior low charges, but seemingly ballooned to triple, even quadruple, consumers’ usual amounts even before the lockdown. Some might have looked at the new bills and raised the issue with Klang Valley’s sole water service provider – Air Selangor, thinking theirs were isolated cases. But a check on Air Selangor’s social media channels over the past week showed hundreds of grouses from people shocked by the sudden spike. In many cases observed by Between The Lines (BTL), people who had bills of around RM20 a month previously now received bills upwards of RM90 or even exceeding RM100.

Tiered billing system

A slight spike in this month’s water bill was already anticipated. Up to February, Selangor allowed its residents, irrespective of economic status, to enjoy up to 20 cubic metres of free water. However, from March 1, the state was to begin enforcing its Darul Ehsan Water Scheme which would only accord free treated water for registered Selangor households with a monthly income of RM4,000 or less. The rest were to have been charged based on consumption, the minimum amount being RM6. Then came the MCO, which resulted in Air Selangor announcing it would suspend house-to-house meter reading between March 18 and April 30.

MalaysiaKini, Thursday, 23 Apr 2020, 11:14 am

Water is important for food and rural development, national food security, economic development and the environment to preserve water resources (both surface water, groundwater and natural flow regimes), bio-diversity and cultural heritage, along with mitigation of water-related hazards. As the world confronts the Covid-19 pandemic, experts stress the importance of constantly and thoroughly washing hands with soap and water and using alcohol-based hand sanitisers to reduces the risk of getting or spreading the coronavirus. What if we do not have access to clean water for any prolonged time during this or any future pandemic?


Sungai Selangor is one of the major rivers that runs from Kuala Kubu Bharu and empties into the Straits of Malacca at Kuala Selangor. Sungai Selangor Dam and Sungai Tinggi Dam have the capacity to supply 344,529 million litres of water. There are three water treatment plants operating under Sungai Selangor with a total capacity of 2,700 million litres per day serving Klang Valley, Kuala Selangor and Hulu Selangor involving 1,133 areas of 1,166,842 customer accounts. On March 27, we faced the first unscheduled water disruption during the movement control order and another within 20 days which was on April 17. This water disruption caused by pollution in Sungai Selangor affected 52 percent of total account holders in Selangor.

Amid this Covid-19 pandemic, 1,292 areas in eight regions, namely Kuala Lumpur, Petaling, Klang, Shah Alam, Kuala Selangor, Hulu Selangor, Gombak and Kuala Langat, faced water disruption from midnight of April 16 which was only fully restored after three days. The Sungai Selangor Water Treatment plants SSP1, SSP2, SSP3 and Rantau Panjang had to be shut down following an incident of odour pollution in Sungai Selangor detected in the raw water supply from the river.

Government and water operators are committed to providing better water supply for the general public as well as for the industrial and agricultural) sectors. Several policies have been developed and many programmes have been initiated to ensure continuous water supply. However, rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, together with climate change and increasing number of polluted rivers, make some of the traditional approaches in planning and managing water resources ineffective and requires urgent assessment.

MalaysiaKini, Thursday, 6 Sep 2018, 7:53 pm

LETTER | A growing population leads to greater pressures on the availability of water resources. Population growth brings about mounting demands and competition for water in domestic, industrial, and municipal uses. Water is also needed for agriculture and industrial, and for the disposal of waste materials. Water is crucial for life on earth. It plays an essential role in our health, economy, food production, and environment. Safe drinking water and freshwater are imperative for development and public health. Based on a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) statement, 160,000 hectares of the Ulu Muda forest in Kedah, which act as a water catchment area for the Muda, Pedu and Ahning dams, provide an invaluable environmental service to northern peninsular Malaysia.

Rivers originating from deep within this forest provides as much as 96 percent of Kedah’s and 80 percent of Penang’s water supply – driving the region’s growth. About four million people in the three northern states in Malaysia are dependent on Ulu Muda as a regional water catchment area. Potential deforestation and unsustainable logging activities, both legal and illegal, threaten Ulu Muda’s role as a water catchment area by affecting the quality and volume of its water output. The clearing of forest patches and unsustainable logging increase the run-off of soil into Ulu Muda’s lakes and rivers, making raw water supply murky and more expensive to treat.

“There has been a widespread failure to recognise water’s vital role in providing food, energy, sanitation, disaster relief, environmental sustainability and other benefits. This has left hundreds of millions of people suffering from poverty and ill health and exposed to the risks of water-related diseases,” Ban Ki-moon, former secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) said in the foreword to the UN World Water Development Report 3. In April 2018, Malaysian Water Forum embarked on an initiative through a memorandum highlighting the need for independent research to study the impact of logging in the reserve forest of Ulu Muda by considering the economic impact towards surrounding agriculture activities, the health of the surrounding population, and flora and fauna.

The Star, Friday, May 15, 2020, 11:11 AM

PETALING JAYA - Water consumption in the country has gone up even as the national reserve margin is among the lowest since 2008 and seepage from leaky pipes continue. Latest data from the National Water Services Commission (SPAN) showed consumption per capita in Peninsular Malaysia and Labuan has spiked to 230 litres per capita per day (LCD) last year, up from 226 litres (LCD) in 2018 and 222 LCD in 2017. The reserve margin - the difference between the production capacity of water treatment plants and the usage - was at 12.7 per cent in 2018, the lowest since 2008. Last year, it crept up to 12.9 per cent.

The United Nations set the daily water requirement at 165 litres per person every day. In 2018, seven states recorded an increase in non-revenue water (NRW) from loss and seepage through faulty and leaky pipes - Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Melaka, Terengganu, Perlis and Selangor. "The level of our NRW at 33.9 per cent for the peninsula and Labuan in 2018 remained unsatisfactory. Pipe leakage, storage reservoir overflows and water theft all contribute to NRW. "Reducing NRW is one of the key performance indicators SPAN has set for operators, " said former chairman Charles Santiago in the latest SPAN report.

The report was published earlier this year before Santiago was removed as SPAN chairman. He confirmed the water consumption data for last year. In the report, Santiago also highlighted the need to conserve the country's rivers, pointing to incidents of pollution in Selangor, Johor and Pahang that had disrupted water supply in recent months. Association of Water and Energy Research Malaysia (Awer) president S. Piarapakaran said it may not be entirely right to say Malaysians tend to waste water by comparing the recommended water usage at 165 LCD. Although Malaysia is categorised as a country with high domestic water consumption, he said there were many reasons that contributed to the increase in water consumption per capita in the country.

The Star, Monday, 23 April 2020, 12:00 AM

WALK down the city streets, in the kampung, along the beach, in the forest, in fact anywhere in this country and you will inevitably see it – plastic garbage. This is the most common litter in our country and it is not only drowning our nation but the entire planet as well. Even the oceans are teeming with plastic waste. Plastic pollution is one of the most basic environmental problems we face today. Unfortunately, we tend to forget that we are the biggest culprit behind this problem and that we have to take drastic action to reduce and ultimately end plastic pollution.

Malaysians use three billion plastic bags per year. Controlling or even charging people to use them, as is happening with the “No Plastic Bag Day” every Saturday throughout the country, and consumers in Selangor being charged 20 sen for plastic shopping bags, is not enough to tackle this problem. Controlling the usage of single-use plastic shopping bags will indeed reduce the volume of plastic waste but we often neglect to identify the suitable substitutes for these bags. Since we still need carrier bags for our shopping, there will be times when it is unavoidable for us to use plastic bags even if it costs us 20 sen. Besides plastic bags, almost all packaging – from drinks to food and cleaning detergents – are plastic.

The current plastic pollution reduction rules and policies in Asian nations appear to principally encourage the use of bags made from biodegradable plastic, paper bags and non-woven shopping bags. Most commercially-available and cheap biodegradable plastic bags are still plastic and fossil fuel-based. Only bags that conform with the ASTM D6400 or EN 13432 compostability standard are truly biodegradable. Non-woven shopping bags are cheaper lightweight bags that look and feel like fabric and are normally given out as gift bags at events or sold at supermarket checkout lanes. These should be avoided as they are made of polypropylene and are therefore also plastic despite their resemblance to cotton or fabric. They are not durable, usually contain lead and break down into plastic fibres easily, contributing to microplastic pollution. They cannot be restored, recycled or composted.

The Star, Saturday, 25 Apr 2020

AS the world grapples with the Covid-19 pandemic, health experts are stressing the importance of regular and thorough washing of hands with soap and water to reduce the risk of getting the disease and spreading the infection. This is all and well if we have access to uninterrupted supply of clean water. Last week, taps in 1,292 areas in Kuala Lumpur, Petaling, Klang, Shah Alam, Kuala Selangor, Hulu Selangor, Gombak and Kuala Langat went dry after pollution in Sungai Selangor necessitated the shutting down of water treatment plants (SSP1, SSP2, SSP3 and Rantau Panjang) that supplied these areas. Water supply was fully restored only after three days!

With little or no access to water to wash their hands, how would people be able to protect themselves in this pandemic? Government and water operators are committed to providing uninterrupted water supply to the general public as well as the industrial and agricultural sectors. Policies and programmes have been developed and initiated to meet these commitments. However, rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, increasing incidents of pollution in rivers and the impact of climate change have rendered most of these traditional approaches ineffective.

We need better policies to prevent pollution at river basins. Instead of investigating who the polluters are after the incidents, it would be more beneficial to study how they operate and stop them in their tracks. In the case mentioned here, fish rearing activities near the river were suspected of causing the pollution. If the enforcement agencies are unable to monitor our water sources for whatever reason, the policymakers need to aggressively think about engaging resident associations and communities living in riparian areas to create awareness among them of the importance of preserving water quality in the rivers.

The Star, Friday, 26 Oct 2018, 12:00 AM

Drinking plenty of water may help with weight control. A new study in the Annals of Fmaily Medicine found that people who werent well-hydrated were more likely to be obese. OUR tap water has a bad taste and odour, according to a study by Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. It’s no wonder then that we are not keen to drink it! Water from the treatment plant is undoubtedly clean but the condition of the pipes that channel it to our homes can affect its purity, taste and odour. These pipes originate from multiple sources and can be many kilometres in length. Along the way, there may be some spots where the water is trapped, resulting in the accumulation of sand or moss, which affects the odour and taste of the water.

Some pipes can even be old and rusty. This is why you see brown water coming from your faucets. Brown water is also due to burst water mains in the municipal system, repairs on water mains, extensive use of water by the Fire Department or high content of iron and/or manganese in the water. Besides the pipes, water tanks on landed property and business premises can also be blamed for contaminated water especially if these are not cleaned regularly. Microorganisms such as E. coli and coliform may breed in the water if it is stored for a long period in the tank.


Contaminated water is known to cause many deadly diseases including cholera, typhoid and dysentery. Filtering and boiling tap water before consumption is the best way to ensure the water is safe for drinking. Filtering removes sediments while boiling kills the microorganisms in the water. Rust is one of the primary sources of sediments in plumbing. If sediment in plumbing is a persistent problem, the best course of action is to ask a plumber to flush out the entire system. Flushing will not only dislodge and remove the sediments from the pipes, it will also prevent water stagnation, a risk factor for growth of bacteria.

The Star, Saturday, 27 Jul 2019, 12:00 AM

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is not prepared to weather a water crisis, says a conservation group, warning that there would be “nothing surprising” about a shortage in 2025. The Association of Water and Energy Research Malaysia (Awer) president S. Piarapa­karan said the auditing of the water industry meant that the government was forecasting future demand. The government agencies and regulators in Malaysia, he claimed, were ill-prepared for a water crisis. “We can actually see this by observing a lot of water disruptions and the slow supply recovery process. “In fact, Selangor is actually facing a water crisis – mainly due to very irresponsible steps at both the federal and state levels. “There is a 50-year forecasting document. This is more like a desktop study and can be used as baseline. “We will have to see the forecasting models and parameters used by agencies involved to see if this will eventually represent actual situation,” he said.

He was responding to a statement by Water, Land and Natural Resources Ministry that it had commissioned a nationwide audit on the water industry in anticipation of longer droughts that the country would have to face due to climate change. The ministry was also studying the possibility of tapping underground water sources, which was expected to be completed next year. Piarapakaran also blamed the shortages on a growing demand for treated water. “We need to look at the population and economic activity densities. “These two parameters have been on the increase as Malaysia is a developing nation and a manufacturing hub. “So, there is nothing surprising if we face a shortage by 2025.

“However, under the Water Services Industry Act 2006 model, water operators must prepare a 30-year business plan and in this, the need to develop new treatment plants, non-revenue water (NRW) reduction, infrastructure replacements and improvements. “On the water resources part, pollution control will become an important aspect,” he said. Malaysian Water Forum president Saral James said the audit into the water industry should have been done earlier but since it was a new government, it was “better late than never”. The government, said James, needed to look at public water usage patterns, adding that it was important for the public to be aware of the importance of conserving water. “The way we are using water now – if we don’t do any public awareness to be conscious about water usage, then, definitely, there will be water shortages. “This is just another way to meet water demand, but just meeting water demands – like money – is never enough,” she said. She said while tapping underground water was a good approach, this needed to be done with proper study and research. 

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