PETALING JAYA — Selangor never had a zero water-reserve margin, Malaysian Water Association president Datuk Abdul Kadir Mohd Din said today.
He denied recent claims by the Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry that the state’s zero water-reserve margin last year was one of the main factors for the state’s water problems.
He said the ministry when stating this had referred to the Malaysia Water Industry Guide (MWIG), of which the association is the publisher.
“The latest issue was published in mid-2017 and contains figures up to 2016. Thus, there is no mention of water statistics for 2017 and onwards,” he said in a statement.
Abdul Kadir said that the zero per cent figure is only if the reserve margin is calculated using a baseline for total design capacity.
“MWIG, which analyses water supply and sewerage services data for the country, uses the Water Treatment Plant (WTP) Design Capacity as its baseline to calculate the water reserve margin, so as to provide a fair overall comparison between states.”
He said that the Selangor’s total WTP design capacity in 2016 was 4,606 million litres daily (MLD) whereas the average total daily production or current demand is 4,807MLD.
“If based on the total baseline on total design capacity, Selangor will have 0% reserve margin for the year concerned.
“However for Selangor, we have added a footnote to explain further due to the special and extenuating circumstances surrounding the water supply in Selangor,” Abdul Kadir said.
He said the footnote indicates that Selangor’s margin is also calculated based on total distributable capacity.
“The obvious limiting factor for Selangor is its production capacity. Due to this production shortfall, the increased distributable capacity from production overloading has been able to deliver the supply capacity to meet the average daily normal demand which is increasing,” he added.
Abdul Kadir noted that the water treatment plants currently operating on overload will return to their designed capacities once the new Langat 2 plant is commissioned in 2022, allowing for proper scheduled maintenance to avoid breakdowns and water disruptions due to stress placed on existing facilities.
* Editor's note: An earlier version of this story contained some errors that have since been corrected. Malay Mail Online apologises for any confusion caused.
