Repairs have been completed on a broken bund of a landfill which resulted in leachate seeping into the Sungai Kembong feeding raw water to the Sungai Semenyih water treatment plant, Selangor Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim said today.

NONE The plant had to be closed yesterday when ammonia in the water rose to a level higher than that set by the Health Ministry, forcing unscheduled interruption in water supply to some 1.2 million people in four districts.

Abdul Khalid ( right ) told a news conference the ammonia level had dropped since and that it was up to operator Worldwide Holdings Bhd to monitor the bunds of the landfill to prevent a recurrence of the problem.

Recent heavy rain could have caused the bund to collapse, he told reporters after chairing a meeting of the state executive council in Shah Alam.

Asked whether the landfill would be closed, he said that was what he wanted to do.

"We have asked for it to be closed but merely closing it will not solve the problem. We have to remove the leachate so that it will be dry and safe," he said.

No state-federal coordination

He said Worldwide Holdings would have to spend more than RM3.5 million to resolve the matter, adding that it would have to be done in stages and would take time.

Abdul Khalid said there was no coordination between the state government, which manages water supply through subsidiary Konsortium Abbas Sdn Bhd that operated the Sungai Semenyih water treatment plant, and Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Syabas), which distributed the water, in the matter of facing pollution such as the seepage of leachate.

He said the state government had to spend much money to maintain the water quality while Syabas merely sold clean water to consumers.

The responsibility of safeguarding water sources would be more effective when the responsibility of distributing water was integrated, as planned by the state government under the restructure of the Selangor water industry, he said.

- Bernama