As the debate continues over when the Klang Valley will be hit by a water shortage, the Government has issued a call for the public to conserve the precious commodity and use it wisely.
The plea has come as the hot and dry weather, particularly in peninsular Malaysia, pushed the demand for treated water and reduced the reserve margin.
The Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry cited National Water Services Commission statistics when making the appeal.
“From June 19 to 25, the reserve margin (for Selangor, Federal Territory and Putrajaya) does not even reach 1 per cent. In fact, between June 19 and 21, the margins were negative,” said ministry secretary-general Datuk Loo Took Gee.
“This is a very precarious situation.”
Loo added that two of the water treatment plants that served Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Selangor had been producing beyond their capacity throughout that period.
According to ministry officers, the water supply reserve margins in those areas had dropped from around 2 per cent before the start of the dry season in May.
“Normally, the highest demand during the hot season is around 7 per cent above the normal consumption,” said an officer.
“A 10 per cent reserve margin would be just nice to serve as a buffer, but now we do not have that luxury,” he added.
Loo said Malaysians on average used about 200 litres of treated water a day and those in Selangor 239.
“We hope that it could be reduced to 180 litres per day.”
If the estimated six million domestic consumers in the peninsula with an average of four in a household could save 20 litres per day, the country can save 480 million litres of treated water a day, Loo said.
“This is more than enough to supply the state of Malacca for one day.”
While many states in the country still have reserve margins of above 10 per cent, Loo said water conservation was for the future and not just for the dry season.
Loo said mitigation projects such as reducing non-revenue water (leakages through pipes) and upgrading selected facilities to increase water production capacity were expected to delay a potential water crisis from 2014 to 2017, but these would likely be completed in 2015.
“All our water conservation efforts are also to avert that (crisis),” said Loo.
She also said the cost of supplying water was likely to increase as treatment plants used a lot of power which would rise in cost should gas subsidies be reduced.
