CAMERON HIGHLANDS, Nov 14 — Imagine if you can, attempting to empty a bathtub with a small cup while the water is running at full tilt.
Perhaps it is an accurate analogy for the scale of the task faced by Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), which spent millions of ringgit and man-hours trying to clear silt from the Sultan Abu Bakar dam in Cameron Highlands.
In their attempts to clear the dam’s reservoir of silt and solid waste, TNB has dug up enough silt to literally fill up a valley.
TNB has been forced to dump the unwanted material in an 80ha expanse of the Sungai Jasin valley in Ringlet. So far, they have filled it up to a height of 30 feet.
During a recent site visit, reporters were brought to view the site first-hand. Trees standing over 30 feet tall were nearly submerged by the silt packed into the valley.
Effectively, the topography of the expanse has changed, leading some quarters to suggest that the area could be a site for future developments.
However, the reality is that even an 80-ha expanse of valley amounts to a short-term solution if attitudes on dumping and land clearing do not change.
TNB generation division (asset operations) senior manager Roslan Abd Rahman said the valley could only be used for another five to six years.
“After that, it will effectively be full and we will have run out of space to dump the silt. Then we’ll have to find another place and at the moment we haven’t identified this yet,” he said.
“For now, 200 lorries are needed to transport the silt from the bottom of the lake to the dumping site.
“The only way to solve this problem is by stopping the siltation into the dam.”TNB are forced to dump the unwanted silt in a 80ha expanse of the Sungai Jasin valley in Ringlet. So far, they have filled it up to a height of 30 feet.
