GEORGE TOWN – Amid backlash and criticism from residents of Taman Island Glades over air pollution caused by the construction of the Air Itam-Lim Chong Eu Expressway bypass project, the state government has intervened to seek a “win-win” solution for both the community and the developer.
State Housing and Environment executive councillor Datuk Seri S. Sundarajoo, who made a surprise inspection of the project site near Seri Delima last Friday, highlighted the need for the developer to implement mechanised dust control measures.
The project has gained widespread attention recently due to the escalating dust pollution that has been negatively affecting residents’ quality of life.
During his visit, Sundarajoo said he had observed that the roads near the site – where the lorries are parked – do not have water browsers that sprinkle water to wash off the roads.
The contractor said they don’t have enough water trucks to perform the task. In response, Sundarajoo recommended mechanising the water browsing.
“I (have) asked them to introduce pipelines along the roads where vehicles kept moving (back and forth from the site) and set up a sprinkler system that can be installed with a timer.
“It’s like in agriculture (where) they use that kind of irrigation system, where it is just a single pipe with the sprinkler.
“Every hour, the sprinkler is turned on and water is sprayed onto the road. So if that happens, the time taken to do the task should be minimised,” he told Scoop when contacted.
Sundarajoo also raised that the mobile crusher, the primary source of dust pollution, lacked an adequate sprinkler system to control the dust emitted from the machine. He recommended that the site manager instruct workers to manually spray water on the crusher to mitigate the dust.
The project manager welcomed Sundarajoo’s suggestions and committed to implementing them immediately.
“I’ve told them I’ll be doing another spot check next week just to ensure they are following my instructions. It was a very friendly visit,” said the executive councillor, who has 40 years of experience in the real estate industry.
He said the contractor has begun installing dust curtains, and they have also been advised to install additional curtains near the rows of houses close to the project site.
The contractors will be installing a dust suppression system as part of their mitigation efforts, he added.
“I have suggested the simplest and most traditional method: regularly spraying water on the road. The only requirement is to increase the frequency.”
“They (the contractor) said that they currently spray water twice a day, which is insufficient for a project of this scale, where water trucks should be in operation every hour. In my opinion, this is unacceptable.
“But they agreed to increase the frequency of water spraying,” he added.
Mitigation works have yielded improvements
Meanwhile, Seri Delima assemblywoman Connie Tan said that the contractor is expected to complete the installation of all dust curtains by the end of this week.
Speaking to Scoop, she said that during her visit to the Taman Island Glades residents regarding the ongoing mitigation efforts, she observed that the measures were beginning to show positive results, with a slight reduction in pollution.
“It’s not that there’s no dust at all, but there has been a slight improvement,” she said.
“However, I hope that after all the measures have been implemented, the dust pollution situation will improve and reduce significantly,” she said.
Tan also said that the Department of Environment has instructed contractors to submit weekly reports on their dust and noise pollution mitigation efforts for the entire month.
The contractors must document all these mitigation activities, and then the DoE will come to monitor the project, she said.
“We are very serious when we say that we want to overcome this (pollution) issue, and we have also asked the contractor to do the necessary,” she added.
The residents held a protest on August 5, where they demanded relevant authorities and the contractor to resolve the problem. – August 13, 2024