Pertubuhan Pelindung Khazanah Alam Malaysia (Peka) president Shariffa Sabrina Syed Akil told FMT the government should enforce a buffer zone along the river.
Commenting on a government plan to clean up the river, she said it would have no lasting effect until there was no more waste flowing into it from factories and other buildings.
Federal Territories Minister Khalid Samad recently told the Dewan Rakyat that his ministry hoped to clear the river of its “teh tarik colour” by 2020 through the River of Life project initiated by the previous government.
Sabrina said she saw no way of ensuring the Klang River’s cleanliness if the government continued to allow physical development in its vicinity and if the current drainage system was not improved.
Merely clearing the river of rubbish would not solve the problem, she added.
Anthony Tan, who heads the Centre for Environment, Technology and Development Malaysia (Cetdem), also commented on the clean-up plan, saying it needed to have the full support of companies doing business along the river and private citizens living in the area.
He said they would have to ensure the absence of pollutants from drains leading to the river.
As long as they did not “see the river as their river”, he said, they would treat it as an open sewer.
He said the government should work with NGOs to educate and collaborate with people settled along the upper part of the Klang River.
He spoke of the “perennial problem of flash floods” in Kuala Lumpur and urged the government to resolve it, pointing out that such floods caused the erosion of soil into the river.
He said flash floods would also move debris into the river. He called for strict enforcement of waste management laws to prevent this.
He also said the government must ensure compliance with waste treatment regulations so that water released into the river would not be contaminated by industrial effluents.
The River of Life project, aimed at transforming the Klang and Gombak rivers into vibrant waterways, is almost 70% complete. Phase One of the project involved seven precincts stretching from Masjid Jamek to Daya Bumi.
Under the previous government, the RM4.4 billion project had three major components: river cleaning, river master planning and beautification, and river development.