KLANG, 10 July: Clean water supply to Pulau Ketam and Sungai Lima is expected to recover as early as July 11 as the pipe replacement at the seabed enters the re-installation phase.
The Assemblywoman for Selat Klang, Dr Halimah Ali, said that at the moment, the Selangor Water Supply Company (SYABAS) is actively conducting pressure tests on the High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) pipes before installation can proceed.
“The work involves a change of a 160 metre pipe due to the pipe bursting at the seabed. The work is quite complicated; it needs to be done manually by professional divers.
“However, it looks like SYABAS’ efforts have managed to detect the leak and pipe replacement works can start.
“The work is expected to be completed this Friday (July 11) and Insya Allah the water supply can be connected after that,” she said when inspecting the repairs between the waters of Pulau Ketam and the Jetty to Pulau Ketam.
She said that the reparation work is very complicated as the divers have to dive to seabed at a depth of 15 to 18 metres and with very limited visibility conditions.
The visibility is estimated to be only one foot, despite using the help of divers light.
In addition, divers also had to suck the sand covering the pipe by using a special suction machine before the pipe can be removed.
“To ensure that this problem does not recur, I will ask those responsible to ensure that monitoring will be carried out on those carrying out activities here,” she said.
When commenting on the situation of residents from Pulau Ketam and Sungai Lima, at the moment SYABAS has increased from 2,500 bottles containing 2.5 litres of clean water to 4,000 bottles, as recommended by Dr Halimah.
Apart from that, a 1,200 gallon tank has been provided to meet the increasing demand for clean water in Sungai Lima.
The 18 kilometre pipe that supplies water to Pulau Ketam and Sungai Lima was found to be leaking, causing the residents in the area to experience water outage since June 21.
On 23 June, SYABAS began work to detect the leak and to dig up sand to replace the 160 metre pipe on the seabed.
NS
