Semenyih Dam - filepic
PETALING JAYA: For the first time in almost five months, the water level at Sungai Selangor dam has breached the 40% level.
The dam, which supplies 60% of water to households in the Klang Valley has been seeing water levels that stubbornly hovered between 30-40% in the last few months, causing many to worry about the introduction of another water rationing exercise.
According to the Selangor Water Management Authority (LUAS) website, the dam was at 40.16% capacity as of 8am yesterday.
A capacity of 30% is the critical level and for a month-and-half earlier this year, residents of Klang Valley had to undergo water rationing due to the low levels of about 31% at the dam.
The rain that has caused flash floods in the northern region and parts of the Klang Valley has somehow contributed to the rise in water levels at the dam.
“We’re lucky,” said Association of Water and Energy Research (Awer) president S. Piarapakaran. “But we have to keep our fingers crossed and reduce water consumption at all times.”
He added that there is nothing to rejoice as the “safe” level determined by LUAS is 55% and if it took more than a month to increase the dam levels by 10%, it would take the same time with a similar weather pattern, to achieve the optimum level.
“There is an established demand for water supply from consumers and industries.
“Sungai Selangor dam functions together with the smaller Sungai Tinggi dam to provide water and if we can be in such a tight situation with two dams, we have to keep on conserving water till the Langat 2 water plant is out,” said Piarapakaran.
The Langat 2 water plant project which is expected to be completed in mid-2017, serves to provide sufficient water supply to residents of Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya.
The project had been held back for three years.
On the weather pattern, Meteorological Department spokesman Dr Hisham Mohd Anip said not much rainfall is expected over the peninsula due to the presence of super typhoon Vongfong over Philippines and typhoon Hudhud over the bay of Bengal, India.
“The condition will change once both typhoons dissipate by early next week and our weather pattern is back to the normal inter-monsoon, with more heavy rainfall and thunderstorm in the afternoon over west coast states of peninsula,” said Hisham.
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