Thursday July 1, 2010
CAMERON HIGHLANDS: Chew Lai Ling and Suhaimi Mamat are teachers in Cameron Highlands. Chew, 42, teaches music at her own Cameron Music School in Brinchang whilst Suhaimi, 28, teaches special education to students with learning disabilities at Sekolah Kebangsaan Tanah Rata.
One Saturday morning, Chew, Suhaimi and another 26 teachers voluntarily gave up their rest day to walk about outdoors. They were assigned to a "crime scene investigation" of a different kind.
They went to several locations and by the time they arrived at the final spot within this highland resort at about 4.30pm, the ambient temperature had rose to 30°C. At the final "crime scene," the team got the results. It was what they had expected and it was not a favourable one.
Good number: Dr Liau (left) showing the organisms found in Sungai Pauh to the programme participants.
The final water sample taken confirmed the team’s greatest fear; it tested positive for carbamates and organophosphate, chemicals found in pesticides although there was not much human activity in the area.
CSI in Cameron Highlands is the acronym for Community Stream Investigators, a new community-based approach for water management. It is an initiative of the Regional Environment Awareness Cameron Highlands (REACH) that was established at the height of the water crisis here in the late 1990s.
Chew, Suhaimi and the other teachers were taking part in one of the CSI modules, Training the Trainers programme. This programme is made possible by a grant from CIMB Foundation.
The "crime scene" here refers to stretches of rivers where water samples are tested.
Alarmed by the deteriorating water quality in Cameron Highlands, REACH formed the CSI and it has been monitoring the water quality of some of the key rivers in the highlands since 2005.
"Our main aim is to make the local community more aware about the state of the rivers and streams in Cameron Highlands and to identify sources of pollution.
"We also aspire to motivate the community to join hands with us in safeguarding the environment and protecting our waterways," said Dr Liau Tai Leong, REACH’s vice-president and the prime mover for CSI’s activities.
Besides monitoring and documenting the changes in the water quality over time, CSI also aims to work closely with the community to ensure the quality of their drinking water.
"Among our long-term goals are to restore the water catchments in this highlands and conserve the rare and important ecosystems.
There are 126 rivers and tributaries in Cameron Highlands but according to Dr Liau, only 10% are within Class 1 and 2 which indicate that the water is fit for drinking.
"As we speak, more rivers are being degraded," he said.
A river categorised as Class 5 is biologically dead, for example, some of the tributaries of Sungai Terla where no living organisms can be found.
According to Dr Liau, who was formerly a government health officer, the usual sources of river contamination in Cameron Highlands are domestic waste, sewage, chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
"The testing conducted by CSI commences with the biological monitoring using macro invertebrates as indicators. They are organisms that can be seen with the naked eye.
"These include aquatic organisms such as insects in their larval or nymph form, crabs, snails, leeches and worms. The more types of organism you find in the river, the better the state of the river is," he said.
He explained further that macro invertebrates made good indicators of river quality because they were easily affected by the physical, chemical and biological conditions of a river. It takes only a little pollution to kill or chase away some of them.
"If the biological monitoring parameter fails, then the next step will be the chemical testing to identify the contaminants of the water. Last will be physical assessment," he said.
Physical assessment entails inspection of the affected area to ascertain the main source of contamination.
For the purpose of training the participants for the CSI programme, Dr Liau chose Sungai Bertam and Sungai Pauh in Tanah Rata. Both flow through the compounds of Cameron Highland’s Forest Department.
Sungai Bertam, one of the main rivers in Cameron Highlands, originates in Gunung Brinchang and flows about 18km into the Ringlet reservoir at Habu.
"The water is pristine at the slopes of Gunung Brinchang but its quality deteriorates as it meanders through farms and towns of Brinchang, Tanah Rata and Ringlet.
"The river has become a drain that not only has to take pesticides and waste water but also silt and, at some points, suspended solids and untreated sewage," Dr Liau lamented.
The good news is that Sungai Pauh has remained pristine since 2005 when the CSI picked it as a test site.
"The survey on the particular Saturday at Sungai Pauh found many different organisms in large amount. The biological diversity index exceeds 22, indicating that the river is very clean with excellent water quality.
"Biodiversity is nature’s gift to us, a reflection of the health of any ecosystem," he said.
"This is in contrast to the stretch of Sungai Bertam (opposite Taman Sedia) where the biological diversity index was around eight or nine. The CSI participants found leeches, which are known to survive in low quality water.
"The tests show traces of pesticides and the presence of phosphate above the norm, and we can deduce that the point source for this must be a farm," said Dr Liau.
He told Bernama that random tests carried out last April on tap water samples in some locations in Cameron Highlands indicated the presence of carbamates, organophospates and organothiophospate — commonly found in pesticides.
"We should not have pesticide residues in our water," he said.
Music teacher Chew said her daughter Melody, 17, a REACH volunteer, convinced her to join the CSI Training the Trainers programme.
"I know the water quality has dropped. When we first moved to Cameron Highlands, we need not use filter for our drinking water.
"We had to install such a filter about five or six years ago," she said.
She had begun talking to parents of her music students about the contaminated rivers and their relation to the farms and excessive usage of pesticides.
Suhaimi, who hails from Rompin, Pahang suggested a big campaign to educate the locals on the importance of safeguarding the rivers.
Like Chew, he too is seeing the impact of unplanned development: "The weather is not as cold as when I was first posted to Cameron Highlands about six years ago."
He said he used to swim in Sungai Pauh and had seen some campers throwing rubbish indiscriminately and washing their cooking utensils and plates in the river.
"The authorities need to monitor the camping sites as the campers’ lackadaisical attitude would worsen the situation," he said. — Bernama
No comments:
Post a Comment