As a result, Johor’s water regulatory body Badan Kawalselia Air Johor (Bakaj) is currently taking an additional supply of six million gallons of treated water per day from Singapore’s Public Utilities Board (PUB).
PUB told the daily that Bakaj requires the water to stabilise their own supply system in Johor Baru following the shutdown last Wednesday.
According to PUB, the treated water will be supplied to Johor until this Wednesday, and in the meantime, water supply to customers in Singapore will not be affected in any way, as it had the ability to increase local production on short notice.
Quoting the 1962 Water Agreement with Malaysia, PUB said it was obliged to sell five millions of gallons per day (mgd) of treated water to Johor in exchange for drawing 250mgd of raw water from the Johor River.
However, according to Straits Times, PUB said the actual supply of water per day to its neighbour across the causeway usually goes up to 16mgd of treated water per day.
It is understood that the urgent request made by Bakaj for the 6mgd is on top of the regular amount provided to Johor daily.
This is not the first time that PUB has had to deal with requests of this nature.
The Singapore daily reported that last month, the dry weather had severely affected water levels in Johor’s Sungai Layang dam, and as a result Bakaj had also requested for an additional 6mgd per day for the whole month.