Authorities believe chemical waste dumped into river through Rawang factory

 

Several thousand litres of scheduled waste is believed to have been dumped into the Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) sewage system through a factory lot in Rawang, which caused the pollution in Sungai Selangor yesterday.

According to Gombak police chief Arifai Taware, authorities raided a factory lot in Taman Velox where they found 40 chemical tanks, each with the capacity of 1,000 litres.

"Several of them have been emptied, while some still have half of its contents," said the police officer when met at the scene this afternoon.

Arifai was at the factory lot for a visit, together with investigators and officers from the Selangor Water Management Board (Luas), National Water Service Commission and Environment Department.

Initial investigation revealed that the company had rented the premises two weeks ago.

Arifai said the company was believed to have used a sewage manhole near a toilet in the premises to dump chemical waste.

The sewer is connected to an IWK waste treatment plant about 300m away, and flows into Sungai Selangor via Sungai Gong.

However, Arifai said the police have yet to determine when the waste dumping had actually started.

"We are waiting for the result of chemical tests to come back, to know what are the solvents that were dumped into the river," he said.

It was reported that police had yesterday arrested four individuals, including two directors of a road construction company, over the latest pollution that caused water disruption, which affected over one million households yesterday. 

The pollution had forced Luas to shut down four water treatment plants yesterday.

According to Arifai, police have taken the four suspects to court this morning and obtained a seven-day remand order against them.

He said the police received a report on the incident at 2.30pm yesterday, before a joint operation was carried out to locate the source of the pollution.

"The pollution was traced to the IWK treatment plant at Taman Velox here. Authorities then started to conduct a search in the area, before tracing strong odour from the premises."  - Mkini