Inland dam solution for water, power woes outdated, say engineers

KOTA KINABALU: Two local engineers are questioning whether Sabah really needs an inland dam to meet its power and water supply needs of the future.

They said that building inland dams is no longer an option in the 21st century, with most countries looking at alternatives – coastal dams in particular, to minimise environmental impact.

Former Sabah Water Department director Datuk Dr Amarjit Singh and water engineer Lim Sin Poh said the state needs a paradigm shift to meet its water and power needs for the future.

The duo, who are members of the International Water Association (IWA), said that it has become more difficult to construct large dams in the 21st century and no longer adapted worldwide.

“Much negative impact on riverine ecosystems caused by inland dams have been found and the public firmly oppose new dams due to the negative economic, social and environmental impact,” Amarjit said in a statement Sunday (Aug 27).

For Sabah to move forward, they said a coastal reservoir is an innovative concept to store flood water from a river system before entering the sea.

“It is a paradigm shift in water resource development where water is stored downstream, preferably near the river-sea confluence, rather than the conventional method of storing water in inland dams,” Lim said.

Statistics show that globally, 42,800 cubic kilometres of water is discharged in the sea every year, most of it is floodwater, he added.

“The world is running out of freshwater, freshwater is running out of the world,” Amarjit said.

They were responding to the recent announcement by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor on the implementation of the RM4bil Ulu Padas hydro-electric dam as a mult-ipurpose dam that will supply electricity and water.

They agreed that Sabah needs to resolve its power and water problems and noted that the proposed Ulu Padas dam is capable of supplying 6,000 million litres per day (MLD).

“Hypothetically, this can serve 24 million people in Sabah, almost similar to Qingcaosha reservoir in Shanghai which supplies 12 million people,” Amarjit said, adding that Sabah’s current population was about three million.

As such, the engineers questioned whether Sabah really has a storage crisis or a mismanagement of treated water distribution.

They said the water problem was not serious until 2021 and there was no “gigantic” increase in demand in recent years.

The state government informed the Sabah assembly recently there was a 50 MLD water shortage supply in northern Kota Kinabalu.

According to a study in Europe, the 3,700 new dams under construction or planned for construction worldwide will not meet the electricity demands of developing countries where the dams are planned.

Instead, the engineers said these dams will pave the way for new ecological problems, reducing the number of free-flowing rivers around the world by 21%.

As the climate is dynamic and constantly changing, it is projected to change more rapidly through the next 50 to 100 years, they added.

Local communities have also voiced their objection to another proposed dam in Papar and have voiced their support for coastal dams as an alternative to meet Sabah’s water needs.