KUALA SELANGOR, Apr: The expertise of Kumpulan Semesta Sdn Bhd (KSSB) in pumping water in mining areas is fully utilised by the State Government to help increase the water capacity at the Sungai Selangor intakes which have been badly affected by drought since February.
The Chief Executive Officer of KSSB, Datuk Dr Azimuddin Bahari, said that at least 100 million litres a day (MLD) has successfully been channelled to Sungai Selangor through pumping at the former sand mine here at Sungai Darah.
“With the expertise KSSB has, the State Government, through the Economic Planning Unit (UPEN) has entrusted us to ensure that the water from the former mine is channelled into Sungai Selangor.
“This is to accommodate the water needs at the Sungai Selangor Water Treatment Plant (WTP) which is dwindling,” he told Selangor Kini during a visit to the former Sungai Darah Sand Mine pumping activity recently.
At least the former Sungai Darah mine has six pools on its 300 acres of land.
It used to be a former tin and sand mine some time back.
Based on a study, KSSB found that all the pools have potential to help supply water to Sungai Selangor, thus helping increase the water level at the Sungai Selangor WTP.
“We will start with pool number five because it is adjacent to Sungai Selangor. This is so we can pump 50 MLD of water into the river.
“After the fifth pool is down by two metres, we will open up other ponds In order to save operating costs, we will connect all other ponds by digging waterways.
“We will channel water from the other pools using gravity flow to the fifth pool before pumping it into the river,” he said.
Azimuddin assured that the water supply from the ponds is sustainable and difficult to run dry because there is a source of groundwater at pool number one.
“What is interesting is that pool number one is the deepest pool, a depth of 60 to 80 feet. With such a depth, it provides a source of groundwater like an underground lake.
“So far, we are using two pumps (pool five and six) and from the connection of all these pools, KSSB has successfully supplied 100 MLD of water to Sungai Selangor each day.
Selangor Kini understands that since the start of operations, KSSB has spent RM500 thousand, where the cost if diesel to keep the pump running for 10 hours each day costs about RM4,000.
