Johor Water Supply Disruption Should Lead To Improvements - Exco

ISKANDAR PUTERI, May 23 (Bernama) -- The water supply disruption in several areas in the district caused by the main pump failure at the Sungai Johor Water Treatment Plant (WTP), affecting over 155,074 consumer accounts, should prompt the water operator to make improvements, said a state executive council member.

Speaking at the Johor Legislative Assembly sitting today, State Public Works, Transport, Infrastructure and Communications Committee chairman Mohamad Fazli Mohamad Salleh said a leak in one of the nine pumps drawing water from Sungai Johor caused flooding in the entire pump house, damaging all nine units.

He said the damage had forced the Sungai Johor WTP, which served domestic and industrial users, as well as hospitals and schools, at a capacity of 318 million litres per day (MLD) to cease its operations.

“The incident involved 155,074 user accounts across seven affected zones, namely Bukit Indah (38,378 accounts), Iskandar Puteri (34,040 accounts), Tiram (30,002 accounts), Tebrau (24,420 accounts), Bandar (13,459 accounts), Kempas (9,257 accounts), and Skudai (5,528 accounts).

“This is the first shortcoming. There is no protection for each pump unit. While it might seem a minor error, the impact was disastrous. I have instructed the company to conduct a post-mortem and check all existing systems.

“This is the issue the water operator must address. When the pump house is submerged, it’s total chaos. To find the source of the problem, the water must be dried, which takes around 12 hours,” he said when winding up the debate at the Sultan Ismail Building today.

On the delay in repairs and restoration of water supply, he said several processes were involved, including drying the flooded area, identifying the source of the leak, inspecting each pump for damage, and sending them to the factory for oven drying.

He explained that these time-consuming and complex procedures caused delays in meeting the original timeline set.

“We started with two pumps running at half capacity (at 12.30 pm on May 22) and reached full capacity (by 7 pm). The first area fully restored was the Tebrau Zone at 4 pm yesterday, followed by the Kempas and Bandar zones at 1 am today,” he said.

He added that 32 water tankers, including nine from Ranhill SAJ, along with a five-ton Public Works Department (JKR) lorry, a three-tonne Irrigation and Drainage Department (DID) lorry, one DID Hilux, and eight Ranhill SAJ one-ton lorries, were deployed to 47 areas, either critical sites such as hospitals or places experiencing delayed water supply, while 13,000 cartons of water were distributed to 30 other affected locations.

Yesterday, a special meeting was called to discuss the problem of water supply disruptions in several areas in the district due to the breakdown of the main pumps that supplied water to the Sungai Johor WTP.

Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi said the meeting was held to discuss solutions to repair the six damaged pumps immediately.

--BERNAMA