SPAN chief executive officer Mohd Ridhuan Ismail said the focus of the study was on penalties, appointment of concessionaires or cleaning contractors, and the fee charged for the service.
He said there were currently more than 1.3 million individual septic tanks serving 6.7 million residents in urban areas and housing estates nationwide.
However, he said, very few had their septic tanks cleaned at least once in three years as required, and the situation was believed to have been aggravated after the septic tank cleaning service provided by Indah Water Konsortium Sdn Bhd (IWK) was halted on Jan 1, 2008.
“Actually, the Septic Tank Treatment Regulations have been in existence since 2010, but not enforced because septic tanks are considered as individual or private property under the National Water Services Industry Act 2008, which allows owners of premises to maintain their own sewage tanks,” he told Bernama.
“After taking into account the fact that relying on owners of premises to empty the tank according to the prescribed period is not feasible, SPAN is conducting a study to outsource the service to a concessionaire with a certain rate of payment,” he said.
According to him, individual septic tanks have limited storage space and are designed to store sewage water from toilets, bathrooms, kitchens and washing machines, and if the solids that settle at the bottom of the tanks are not cleaned on a scheduled basis, sewage water will flow out and pollute drains.
He said the situation would become riskier if the bacteria-filled water entered nearby rivers.
He said under IWK, the fee for a scheduled septic tank treatment service was RM6 per month, while RM8 was charged for the maintenance of joint tanks.
Asked of the form of action that could be taken against owners of premises who did not clean the septic tank periodically if the Septic Tank Treatment Regulations were enforced, Ridhuan said they could be imposed compounds or fines, besides being ordered to pay for the suction service provided by a contractor assigned by SPAN.
Section 65 (1) (c) of the Water Services Industry Act 2006 (Act 655) states that individual septic tank owners need to maintain the system, and failure to do so could result in fines of not more than RM50,000.
There is also a clause under the same Act and section stating that the owner of a dirty septic tank that becomes a nuisance or dangerous to health has committed an offence, and can be fined up to RM50,000 or jailed for up to six months, or both, upon conviction.
Ridhuan said the commission had collaborated with various parties, including the Water and Energy Consumers Association of Malaysia (WECAM), to carry out awareness programmes on the importance of periodically cleaning septic tanks as well as conservation of water.