“At 9am today, the water level at the Lahar Tiang intake reached 1.56m. PBAPP is continuing to maximise raw water pumping operations from Sungai Muda while drawing down the reserve from the expanded Mengkuang dam,” it said in a statement.
It said treated water production has reached 100% (about 1,000 million litres per day) at the Sungai Dua water treatment plant (WTP).
High volumes of treated water have been pumped out from the Sungai Dua WTP to all supply areas in Seberang Perai and Penang Island over the past nine hours, it said.
“PBA is working to optimise its water supply operations towards full normalisation of water supply services in Penang as soon as possible,” it said, adding that updates will be provided.
Yesterday, Bernama reported that several areas in Penang will have water supply disruptions until Wednesday because of a sudden drop in the water level at Sungai Muda, resulting in the main water treatment plant being unable to produce the normal amount of treated water.
PBA CEO K Pathmanathan said thousands of consumers would be affected in Seberang Perai’s three districts and in southern parts of Penang.
He said the raw water level at Lahar Tiang had dropped by half to 1m instead of the normal 2m. As a result, the corporation could not abstract raw water from the Muda river, which is the main source of raw water in Penang.
He said PBA was channelling water from the Mengkuang dam to support production of treated water at Sungai Dua but its limited production is not enough to cover the shortage.
Yesterday, Kedah menteri besar Sanusi Nor said a sensor failure opened a floodgate letting Muda river water flow out to sea, causing water supply disruptions in Kedah and Penang.
He said an automatic sensor failure at one of the barrages on the Muda river had led to the floodgates being opened suddenly, letting what he called “super large quantities” of river water flow out to sea.
“This caused the level of Sungai Muda to drop sharply and affected the intake of several water treatment plants and thus the water supply to several areas,” he said after visiting the site.