MIRI: Court action will be taken against the company operating the premix plant along the Miri/Bintulu Road that polluted the Sungai Liku – the source of raw water intake for the Lambir Treatment plant after diesel spilled into the river when its fuel pipeline burst last Saturday.
Head of the Department of Environment Miri, Siva Nathiran Subramanian said the case will be filed under Section 25 (1) of the Environmental Quality Act 1974.
The act provides a penalty of not more than RM100,000 ringgit in fine or imprisonment term of five years or both.
“We will definitely bring this case to court. It is not only the first such case this year but the biggest so far . We have other cases, but this is the biggest so far,” he said when contacted by the Borneo Post yesterday.
Siva Nathiran said in addition, the company had been asked to pay all costs incurred in the cleaning up of the pollution, carried out by DOE and the relevant agencies.
He said the company had not only agreed to pay for the cost, but also as a long term measures to relocate the plant, to prevent such untoward incidence from recurring.
Short term measures taken by the company were to provide DOE with the plant’s Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), and also on the advice of DOE, to limit the storage of diesel up to 500 litres during non-operating hours.