SIBU: Salim treatment plant is expected to increase its production capacity to 150 million litres of treated water a day by next month.
Sibu Water Board (SWB) general manager Daniel Wong said this could be achieved when phase 2 of the plant has gone into full swing in November.
He said currently, the plants at Salim and Bukit Lima could treat 75 million litres and 45 million litres of water respectively daily.
“So in combination, they can treat up to 195 million litres of water a day,” Wong told The Borneo Post, adding that the demand here is about 106 million litres of water daily.
The increased capacity, he explained, was to meet the growing population of the town.
Meanwhile, SWB’s head of production Lau Siew Wei disclosed that the nephelometric turbidity unit (NTU) of the water had returned to normal.
“The NTU reading today (yesterday) was about 400 – a far cry from that between Oct 8 and 10,” said Lau.
He recalled that last Friday, they could not conduct an NTU reading as it had surpassed the 10,000 NTU mark.
“On normal days, the NTU reading is usually between 250 and 400.”
To a question, chemist Ngang Chung Sui revealed that during floods, the NTU reading reached 1,000.
Wong said the plant at Bukit Lima was not designed to cater to extremely high water turbidity such as during the recent debris-jam in Batang Rajang. However its facilities had been improved over the years.
He said suspended solid formed the bulk of the pollution during the crisis.
The general manager urged the public to call their hotline 084-216311 if they have any complaints, assuring them of prompt action.
He said calls would be recorded from the time they were made until their technical unit had carried out corrective action.
“The record will be reviewed during the monthly management meeting. So, the clock starts ticking now,” he said in jest.
Meanwhile, a customer service staff manning the hotline said she received about 24 complaints a day.
Asked to shed light on this, she said: “The calls are usually related to complaint about low water pressure, service interruptions and so on.”
Among those present was SWB’s production superintendent Pius Apin.