KOTA TINGGI, Johor: A pollution incident along the Johor River last week which led to around 800,000 people suffering unscheduled water cuts across the state has continued to irk residents, with some calling for strong sanctions against a mining company involved.

According to the Johor state government, a sand-washing pond at the company’s land sand-mining site in the Kota Tinggi district had burst, contaminating the Johor River and its tributaries. 

This led to a surge in the turbidity level of raw water along the river last Friday and impacted supply to several water treatment plants downstream, including those by local operator Ranhill SAJ. Turbidity is a measure of water clarity, and high turbidity makes water appear cloudy or muddy. 

As a result, this disrupted water supply to residents across Johor Bahru, Kota Tinggi, Pontian and Kulai districts. 

Affected residents whom CNA spoke to expressed dissatisfaction at how the situation was handled by the authorities. 

This included local fishing communities downstream who claimed that their livelihoods have been wiped out as they said that the pollution incident had exterminated the seafood population in the area.  

Meanwhile, water quality experts and environmentalists stressed that local authorities should step up monitoring and mitigation measures to prevent such incidents from recurring. 

Environmentalist Renard Siew, who is the climate change adviser to the Centre for Governance and Political Studies (Cent-GPS), a Malaysia-based behavioural and social science research firm, said that these water supply “disruptions” are depriving residents from a basic need. 

“Fundamentally, it’s about minimisi...