By William Isau
SIBU, Feb 28: The Sibu Water Board (SWB) is currently implementing a 20 million litres per day (MLD) direct river water intake at Sungai Maaw for the Tanjung Manis Water Supply System.
This project aims to resolve the raw water quality for Phase 1 of the Tanjung Manis Water Supply project.
This was said by Minister of Utility and Telecommunication Datuk Julaihi Narawi during his site visit to the project today.
The project has been awarded to Hock Seng Lee Bhd at the contract price of RM16.8 million through open tender.
Narawi said the construction work commenced on July 1 last year and is expected to complete by June 30. The overall physical progress is now at 70.43 per cent completion.
“Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and workforce shortage (foreign workers) arising from the pandemic, the project’s construction progress was adversely affected, resulting in the delay.
“To date, the tidal harvesting storage pond had been completed on schedule. However, the structural works for intake structure, weir structure, and sedimentation tank are delayed due to workforce shortage,” he said.
For this new direct river water intake, he said a tidal harvesting scheme was chosen over a conventional raw water intake due to the tidal nature of the Batang Rajang and the availability of a large tract of unencumbered land.
During high tide, raw water from Batang Rajang will overflow a reinforced concrete weir to fill the 65 million litres (ML) storage pond. This storage pond has sufficient capacity for one day’s abstraction, even during periods of low tide. This cycle of filling the storage pond will be repeated daily during periods of high tide.
Narawi noted that the capacity of this raw water intake could be increased to 65MLD in the future as the water demand in Tanjung Manis increases.
“During operation of the new 20MLD intake, raw water will be pumped from the storage pond to the proposed new pre-sedimentation tank, from where the raw water will gravitate to the holding tank at the existing booster pumping station, which is located adjacent to this new intake.
“From the holding tank, the raw water will be pumped to the Tanjung Manis water treatment plant for treatment before distribution for domestic and industrial usages,” he said.
Currently, the treated water demand at Tanjung Manis and its surrounding areas is around 8.4MLD. The current treated water source is from Bayong Water Treatment Plant, operated by JBALB Sarikei.
Once the Tanjung Manis Water Supply is in operation, the treated water supply from JBALB Sarikei to Tanjung Manis will be stopped. Instead, the water supply to Tanjung Manis will be fed from the new treatment plant at Tanjung Manis.
He said the project is targeted to start supplying water to Tanjung Manis around December this year. — DayakDaily
