During an 11-day period that included Chinese New Year, the water level in the Air Itam Dam only decreased by 0.4% at peak usage, according to Penang Water Supply Corporation (PBAPP) CEO K. Pathmanathan.
Pathmanathan credited the effectiveness of the Air Itam Dam Action Plan (AIDAP) for allowing PBAPP to maintain the dam’s effective capacity until the next rainy season.
He noted that the dam’s effective capacity was at 32.8% on Feb 5 and only went down to 32.4% over the 11-day period.
Under the plan, PBAPP implemented four key water supply engineering contingency measures.
These measures included reducing raw water drawdown from the Air Itam Dam to the Air Itam water treatment plant (WTP) by 75% daily from 44 million litres per day (MLD) to 11MLD and optimizing raw water intake from the main intake and two other raw water resources for the Air Itam WTP at a rate of 6MLD.
Furthermore, treated water production at the Air Itam WTP was decreased by about 66%, from 50MLD to 17MLD.
Additionally, 33MLD of treated water was pumped from the Sungai Dua WTP to make up for the 33 MLD shortfall in the treated water output from the Air Itam WTP.
“The river level of Sungai Muda was relatively healthy at 2.02m on Feb 16. The (effective) capacities of the Muda and Beris Dams that release water into Sungai Muda are 74.8% and 100% respectively,” Pathmanathan said.
He mentioned that if everything goes as planned, PBAPP should be able to maintain its AIDAP 2024 contingency measure for the next 30 to 60 days.
As for cloud-seeding operations, Pathmanathan said PBAPP was waiting for further feedback from the National Water Services Commission (SPAN) on the matter.
