In most communities in western countries, developers, architects and builders are required to address the situation in terms of providing analytical forecasts of the changes in overland flow, stream discharge and use of correct BMPs (Best Management Practices) related to particular projects.

BMPs are any procedure, protocol, structural device or site design that prevents or mitigates storm water runoff.

Daily human activities result in deposition of pollutants on roads, lawns, roofs, farm fields, etc. When it rains, the surface runoff will pick up all the pollutants before entering the storm water drainage wells.

When possible, Best Management Practices (BMPs) that prevent storm water pollution should always be employed before considering various treatment devices.

Architects and developers can play a key role in designing a site that produces very little storm water pollution. Source control BMPs prevent pollutants from contaminating storm water runoff or entering water bodies.

In US, there is such a technology termed as Low Impact Development (LID). LID is an approach to storm water management that focuses on creating hydrologically functional landscapes that mimic the natural hydrologic regime.

To achieve this, it combines hydrologically functional site designs with pollution prevention measures to compensate for land development impacts on water quality. Site design techniques employed are that which store, infiltrate, evaporate and detain runoff.

This approach concentrates on managing storm water on each lot (source control), and emphasises the use of many smaller integrated storm water controls that are distributed throughout the site, near the source of each impact. LID also incorporates multifunctional design elements that can serve more than one purpose.

The LID design approach has received support from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and is being promoted as a method to help meet goals of the Clean Water Act.

Water pump stations

Why the flood mitigation approach advocated by the Penang state government is inadequate to address the flash flood problem, let us look into each aspect of the proposed solution.

The building of water pump stations and more retention ponds in critical areas require a lot of sizable lands while in urban setups, lands are a big constraints. To acquire land for retention pond will cost taxpayers an exorbitant sum which the Penang state government can ill-afford.

The water pump stations are often designed as a ‘black box’ with unknown sizing processes, unproven performance and inadequate maintenance after installation. This is particularly true as we can see from numerous press reports on how water pump stations failed to operate when needed.

The upgrading, widening and deepening of the rivers is a costly solution that comes with limited life span. Long term effects of cumulative sediments resulting from untreated waste water or runoff on the rivers will make this solution obsolete as time passes by. That means frequent upgrading, widening and deepening of the rivers are needed to ensure that flood mitigation is working.

The upgrading of drainage systems will not be able to solve flash flood problems when the flood carrying capacity is limited by a constrained outlet, especially during the clash of high tide and torrential downpours.

CM being irresponsible

If the approach is not workable why do we need to spend billion of ringgit? Lim Guan Eng is being irresponsible for pursuing an ineffective solution inherited from the previous Gerakan statement government without conducting a thorough analysis or study why the Gerakan state government failed to solve our flash flood woes.

lim guan eng azalina othman pc 051108What makes him think that with him in charge, the flood mitigation plan will work? Corruption free? According to the Penang chief minister, the principles of competency, accountability and transparency (CAT) are the key to reinventing the Penang state government. I do agree with that but is he a competent leader, who we can look upon for solving our flash flood woes?

Without prior public consultation, Lim just jumps on the flood mitigation plan prepared by the bureaucrats of the previous state government when Penang was hit by flash floods in the past few months.

What is wrong with the administration of Lim? Like the majority of politicians in BolehLand, he does not understand what is public participation and consultation. A few dialogues with NGOs without follow up actions do not constitute an effective public participation and consultation.

Moreover, there is relatively little or no information on the representativeness of the persons who attended these dialogues. This is nothing but lip service from the Penang state government and demonstrates a lack of respect for citizens, and a complete insult.

Involving interest groups in public decision making, drafting of plans, proposals, policies and legislations is a crucial part of public participation and consultation. There is a wide variety of effective techniques which could be used for consultation but apparently were not employed by the state government. These include public hearings, citizen advisory groups, focus groups, community opinion surveys, expert panels, etc.

According to the definition of Wikipedia, public consultation or simply consultation, is a regulatory process by which the public's input on matters affecting them is sought. Its main goals are in improving the efficiency, transparency and public involvement in large-scale projects or laws and policies.

It usually involves notification (to publicise the matter to be consulted on), consultation (a two-way flow of information and opinion exchange) as well as participation (involving interest groups in the drafting of policy or legislation).

Empower the people

It is a recognised fact that citizen input is a vital part of the planning process. Through public consultation, politicians can avoid the pitfall of making unfavourable or wrong decisions. Politicians should realise that they are ill-equipped with the relevant knowledge in major decision making.

They should learn to empower the people in the decision-making process through a proper public consultation mechanism. Blaming Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for failing to allocate funds for the flood mitigation project is the ultimate aim of Lim.

This demonstrates the lack of competency and confidence of Lim. Even without the allocated funds from the federal government, the state government can still solve the flash flood problem if the government really knows how. But how can those politicians know when they are not the subject matter expert? The decision by Lim to purposely defeat public participation and consultation may eventuate in the ultimate demise of the Pakatan Rakyat state government in Penang.

For a government that advocates competency, accountability and transparency, Lim has failed to deliver his promises. I would like to give the chief minister the benefit of doubt, unfortunately I don’t think we need to wait for five years to make this conclusion.

If Lim is sincere, the very first thing he should do is to ensure a proper public consultation mechanism is in place.

Investing in an obsolete model that is not effective and cost-efficient is tantamount to wasting public monies. Politicians should realise while indulging in public relations blitz, they should restrain from wasting public monies in securing cheap publicity.

Read Part 1 here


ONG EU SOON is a software programmer with a factory automation background. He describes himself as a simple layman who still has a bit of common sense.