KLANG, Aug 16 — Excavation along the 54km Sungai Klang is expected to be done in five years to ensure its depth is restored.
State executive councillor for infrastructure and agriculture Dato’ Izham Hashim said that the massive amount of rubbish in the river has left Sungai Klang only 1m deep, with most of its actual 4m depth made up of garbage and mud deposits.
He said the state government, through the Selangor Maritime Gateway (SMG) project under Landasan Lumayan Sdn Bhd (LLSB), started excavating Sungai Klang two years ago, finding not just plastic and bulky waste, but also mattresses, bicycles, and even wheelbarrows.
“This is the actions of those who don’t care about river cleanliness.
“So far, excavations with three excavators have been done along 8km. For the whole length of Sungai Klang, it will take five years.
“It is complicated as the depth of Sungai Klang is 4m but 3m is made up of garbage and mud deposits, so there’s only 1m of water.
“Excavations must be done to restore the depth of the river to 4m so it can supply water to Sungai Rasau and mitigate floods, because the capacity is there.
“When the capacity (depth) is there, we must strengthen the riverbanks to prevent floods … we will do that under the Irrigation and Drainage Department’s purview,” he said.
Izham added that in addition to the two Interceptor river cleanup machines, mini log booms will be installed in monsoon drains to reduce the flow of rubbish into Sungai Klang.
He said this will be done soon by local councils at monsoon drains that feed into Sungai Klang.
“Previously, we installed log booms in Sungai Klang, but to reduce rubbish, allocations have been issued for mini log booms in monsoon drains.
“Allocations have been approved and managed by local councils,” he said.
From 2019 to August last year, over 88,000 metric tonnes of rubbish has been excavated from Sungai Klang, equivalent to 470 Boeing 747 planes.
From that amount, more than 3,000 tonnes of garbage was collected using the Interceptor 002 and Interceptor 005.
