SANDAKAN – Elopura assemblyman Calvin Chong is going to fight for a discounted rate for water bills in the district on the basis that the Sabah Water Department has failed to supply a decent quality of treated water.
The Warisan representative had hired a private technical service engineer to collect water samples from all around the district today and said the samples would be sent for proper laboratory tests.
“If the test results prove that the treated water supply in Sandakan is bad, then I am going to take this case to the lawyer, to take the Sabah Water Department to court and fight for a discount for all the Sandakan residents’ water bills,” he told Scoop.
The issue of Sandakan’s salty water supply started around November 2022 when locals claimed to have received treated water that tasted salty, affecting almost 400,000 people in the district.
The complaints then led to an investigation at the Segaliud water treatment plant, in which the Water Department discovered a faulty river gate, causing seawater to flow into the treatment plant’s intake and then into the reservoir.
Though the problem now is not as serious as before, Chong claimed the chloride content in the water supply here was still very high.
“People are still buying and drinking mineral water here. The (state Water Department) has to be (held) responsible for failing to provide clean treated water supply to the residents of Sandakan for over a year,” he said.
Chong also tested the water supply here with a TDS meter and found that the reading was at over 350 parts per million, which was not safe for drinking.
“The lab test will show a more accurate reading and I hope to bring the test result as proof that the people in Sandakan are still using contaminated water supply,” he said.
The samples are to be sent to a private laboratory in Kota Kinabalu, and the results should be out within 10 working days. – December 21, 2023