The recurrent episodes of water cuts in Selangor over the last two months were certainly unusual in terms of their frequency and timing, and expose the state’s vulnerability to the pollution of its water supply.

Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Azmin Ali has gone so far as to accuse the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, headed by Umno, of sabotage in a bid to wrest back the state which it lost to the opposition in the 12th general election in 2008.

Expectedly, there has been a barrage of criticism against Azmin as state and federal leaders have traded accusations about who is to blame for the disruption which affected some 1.6 million to 1.8 million consumers.

In late October, Selangor Umno Youth lodged 22 police reports against Azmin for making that allegation. A week later, members of the party’s youth wing held a protest against the state’s handling of the water problem, flinging pails and mineral water bottles at the state secretariat building in Shah Alam to reflect the people’s unhappiness.

Although the battle lines in the blame game are clearly drawn, the pathway to a lasting solution of the problem are less evident, going by the sometimes contradictory information provided by the different authorities. For example:

• After the Selangor Water Management Authority (Luas) lodged a police report on Oct 23 against Umno for allegedly sabotaging the state's water supply, Azmin reportedly said that the method of contamination was pretty standard and very systematic.

"We have strong evidence in the case of Sungai Semenyih, and the Department of Environment and the Attorney-General's Chambers are completing their investigation,” he said.

In its report, Luas stated that all the incidents of water supply disruption had taken place outside the state, namely in Pahang and Nilai, Negeri Sembilan.

• In addition, a Bernama survey of factories in Nilai and Semenyih published on Oct 31 indicated that industrial effluent discharged into the drains and channelled directly into nearby rivers was believed to be the source of the odour and polluted water that had affected the Sungai Batang Benar, Sungai Pajam, Sungai Semenyih as well as Sungai Beranang, which flows into Sungai Buah and into the Semenyih Water Treatment Plant.

The Bernama team also found that the Sungai Batang Benar near Kampung Batang Benar was filled with not only rubbish, but foaming murky liquid as well.

Workers and residents said that the stench from factory effluents had become worse of late, and was especially bad at night.

• Interestingly, the same day, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar recommended that operators of water treatment plants adopt a standard operating procedure to establish the type of odour pollution that would require the closure of a plant.

Apparently, the monitoring of odour levels is an exception rather than the rule in the sector.

“So far, only Pengurusan Air Selangor monitors the odour parameter whereas the odour parameter is not required to be monitored in raw water supply by the Health Ministry,” he said. The Department of Environment (DOE) has no odour parameter under the National Water Quality Standard for the rivers, he said.

•This means that the DoE’s conclusions on the water quality of the affected rivers need to be weighed against the evidence, albeit anecdotal, presented by Bernama, here fulfilling a public interest role, and the import of Wan Junaidi’s revelation.

So, while there would be no doubt that when Negeri Sembilan Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Hassan said on Nov 2 that the state government had instructed all the relevant technical departments to investigate each factory located near the Sungai Semenyih water treatment plant, as Bernama reported, the monitoring took place “right from the first day the water pollution issue was reported”.

Not surprisingly, Mohamad said seven reports had been prepared by the DoE and none showed any elements of pollution occurring at the industrial areas in Nilai.

Yet Bernama noted, for the record, that the distance between the Nilai industrial area and the intake point of Sungai Semenyih water treatment plant is only 8.5km.

Amid the debate over whose fault it is that consumers were rudely deprived of their water supply in back-to-back disruptions, important questions about the extent of the pollution and the long-term environmental and health hazards that they pose have been neglected.

Moreover, the Selangor government’s move to seize the land owned by a factory that was causing the pollution, as well as all its equipment, begs the question of how such polluting industries are able to operate in the first place.

Taking the inquiry a little further, it becomes clear that monitoring polluters and seizing their assets become unwieldy methods of protecting consumers and the environment when the economy is dependent on large-scale industrial development that is ultimately harmful to life.

It is therefore imperative that the overall approach to economic development be re-examined in order that environmentally sustainable criteria for growth be used to plan for a healthy future.

Common sense dictates that polluting industries must be phased out as a matter of priority and replaced with clean technologies if the people are to be spared from paying a high price in terms of their health and the quality of their environment.

As for being the victims of a development model that is essentially poisoning the ecological basis of our civilisation, we must bear the responsibility for taking the initiative to save our future, or face its dire consequences.

R B Bhattacharjee is associate editor at The Edge Malaysia

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