300,000 More Households Go Dry

Close to 300,000 households in the Klang Valley will be added to the water rationing list as the situation at the dams in Selangor are not showing any improvement, said the National Water Services Commission (Span).

At a press conference here yesterday, it announced that 290,865 households will see taps going dry beginning on Monday under the third phase of the water rationing schedule, that will cumulatively affect some 3.6 million residents.

Under the third phase, the Selangor Government will cut water released from its reservoirs by another 300 million litres a day – a significant reduction from the previous 200 million litres a day under the second phase – bringing the total reduction to 500 million litres a day.

The earlier phase of rationing, which began last Sunday, involved 431,167 households.

“The water level at the Sungai Selangor dam has dropped 2.25m within a week to 194.1m on Friday, bringing the active storage level to 43.24%, compared to 46.9% last week,” said Span chief executive officer Datuk Teo Yen Hua.

Whether rationing would be extended beyond March 31 depends on water levels in the Sungai Selangor and Sungai Tinggi dams, which collectively account for 61% of all water needs in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putra­jaya.

Selected districts in Johor and Negri Sembilan have also been affected by water rationing, and Span warned that Kelantan and Perak were also not spared from declining raw water supplies.

SPAN also said it had received many complaints of delays in resumption of water supply to households during the first and second phases of the rationing.

“Unlike electricity, water requires time to flow and to fill up the entire piping system before it can reach consumers.

“High-area units or those at the end of a pipe distribution system, and those supplied by a pump system such as high-rise buildings, would typically be slower in receiving supply when it resumes,” Teo explained.

Syabas executive director Sanusi Sulieman, who was also at the press conference, said water tankers would only be supplied to areas without water on days where water supply was supposed to resume, and not on days where there were scheduled cuts.

The affected areas in the Klang Valley are divided into Zone 1 and Zone 2, with Zone 2 being the first of the two to experience dry taps starting last Sunday.

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/03/08/300000-more-households-go-dry-Rationing-expands-to-third-phase/