He also suspects that the irresponsible parties are familiar with the enforcement officials’ inspection trend as the pollution of the river is believed to have occurred outside the team’s working hours.
“The location of today’s incident is believed to be slightly further up from Sungai Gong, Rawang, which means the culprits who disposed (of the solvent fluid), whether intentional or not, seem to know the locations where we take water samples.
“Since halting the operations of the four water treatment plants (LRAs) this afternoon, our staff have been working hard to ensure that the pollution is contained.
“I was informed that, as of 5pm today, the odour pollution reading has been reduced to 2 TON (threshold odour number),” he told reporters at the lobby of the Selangor State Legislative Assembly (DUN) here today.
Amirudin also described the odour pollution incident at Sungai Selangor as a challenge since the state government had passed the Selangor Water Management Authority (LUAS) (Amendment) 2020 Bill during the assembly sitting yesterday.
He said although the penalties provided for under the amendment could not yet be applied to resolve today’s odour pollution incident, there were other punishments under other acts that could be imposed on the culprits, such as the Environmental Quality Act 1974.
Speaking on the LUAS (Amendment) 2020 Bill, Amirudin said it would be gazetted after being signed by the Sultan of Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, or a month from the date of the assembly’s approval.
The amendments in the bill include causing water pollution due to odour and taste as an offence, raising the fine to a minimum of RM200,000 and up to RM1 million, making imprisonment mandatory, authorising the director or enforcement official to make seizures without warrants, making polluters pay to LUAS the cost for cleaning up the pollution, and giving LUAS the power to offer rewards to whistleblowers.
Four LRAs, namely the Sungai Selangor LRA Phases 1, 2, 3 as well as the Rantau Panjang LRA, were ordered to shutdown at noon today due to odour pollution, causing unscheduled water supply disruption to some 1,139,008 households in the Klang Valley.
The disruption encompassed 1,279 areas in Kuala Lumpur, Petaling, Klang, Shah Alam, Kuala Selangor, Hulu Selangor, Gombak and Kuala Langat.