Malaysia: Ringlet dam disaster - The perfect storm

The Star 24 Oct 13;

IT was like a perfect storm. For years, persistent and unchecked land clearing has caused land erosion and heavy sedimentation in the Sultan Abu Bakar dam at Ringlet in Cameron Highlands.

On Tuesday, it started pouring cats and dogs. And at midnight, while most of the farmer residents of the area were fast asleep, the siren at the dam went off, signalling the release of excess water.

For 40 years now, the residents have heard the sirens only to see the Sungai Bertam water level rise a little. So, those who could hear the siren over the din of the pouring rain slept on.

And the waters came in a torrent, sweeping away cars and houses and destroying vegetables worth a fortune gone.

It was tragic story.

“But these are all man-made mistakes,” said Regional Environ­mental Awareness Cameron Highlands (Reach) president R. Ramakrishnan.

The mistakes led to the death of three people, and left hundreds more homeless or with wrecked houses and lives that they will have to nurse back to normalcy.

Ringlet dam disaster: Man-made mistakes contributed to deluge, says Reach
The Star 24 Oct 13;

PETALING JAYA: Heavy rain and persistent land clearing over the past few years probably contributed to the need to release more water from the Sultan Abu Bakar dam, says Regional Environmental Awareness Cameron Highlands (Reach) president R. Ramakrishnan.

He added that land clearing upstream of the dam would have created erosion and contributed to heavy sedimentation.

“These are all man-made mistakes. The siltation caused the water level in the dam to rise while the sand also damaged its turbines,” he said in an interview.

Ramakrishnan, who has constantly spoken out against ongoing land clearing in Cameron Highlands, warned that the same thing could happen near the new Ulu Jelai hydroelectric dam if massive land clearing went unchecked.

“Should the Ulu Jelai dam be required to release excess water, Lipis can be flooded,” he added.

Ramakrishnan said many farms were swept away in the torrent of water in yesterday’s incident.

However, he claimed that the farms were illegal because they had been set up on the river reserve despite the existence of TNB signboards warning farmers against doing so.

“No structure is supposed to be built in that particular area, while no human activity should take place on river reserves,” he added.

Ringlet dam disaster: Area around dam undergoing massive land clearing
The Star 24 Oct 13;

PETALING JAYA: Commissioned in 1963, the 39.6m-high Sultan Abu Bakar Dam was built across Bertam river to generate electricity by then Lembaga Letrik Negara by impounding water from a 183.4sq km catchment in the highlands.

The dam forms part of the Cameron Highlands-Batang Padang Hydro-electric Scheme, which has an installed capacity of 262MW.

Under normal operating circumstances, water from the dam, located 1,071m above the sea level, is channelled via a tunnel to an underground power station further downstream.

Overtopping of a dam beyond its spillways can cause its eventual failure. Overtopping surface runoff will remove earth on both sides of the riverbank that hold the dam in place.

To counter this, dam operators normally undertake controlled discharges via the spillways, something that TNB claimed that it did early yesterday morning, to prevent flooding the entire Bertam valley.

The area around the dam is widely known to be undergoing massive land clearing activity, legal or otherwise, for agriculture and tourism.

Even to the most casual of observers, siltation over the years from land clearing in Cameron Highlands is forcing TNB to put in place a near-continuous desilting programme to maintain the reservoir, which was once a popular tourist attraction.

Number of tragedies at veggie and flower farms in Cameron Highlands
The Star 24 Oct 13;

PETALING JAYA: Vegetable and flower farms in Cameron High-lands have been the scene of a number of tragedies over the years.

Prior to yesterday’s mud flood in Bertam Valley which killed three people after water was released from a dam, there have been at least three other incidents of farm workers killed due to a land or mudslide.

On Oct 10, 1996, three farm workers were buried alive when a landslide hit a farm located at KM48 Jalan Ipoh, Kuala Terla in the highlands.

Four years later on Jan 6, 2000, two pre-dawn landslides hit farms in Kampung Raja near Tanah Rata after the nearby Sungai Ikan burst its banks, killing five people.

The most recent incident prior to yesterday’s tragedy took place on Jan 17, 2008, when two foreign workers were buried alive after a slope gave way in a flower farm in Tringkap.

Bertam Valley which was hit by the floods yesterday is a village located in the town of Ringlet which is Cameron Highlands main vegetable and flower farming hub.

The village is located near the Bertam river bank, a flat valley which is where many of the farms are located.

Other farming villages located in Ringlet include Boh and Habu, both of which are popular for their vegetables, flowers and tea.

Cameron Highlands hit by land clearing for farms
Silt build-up in rivers and lakes due to development, clearing of hillside land
Yong Yen Nie Malaysia Correspondent In Cameron Highlands Straits Times 28 Oct 13;

ON THE tree-lined patio of a colonial-style hotel, tourists sip their drinks as they enjoy the cool air that many come to Cameron Highlands for.

Their view of the lake in front of them, fortuitously, is blocked by the foliage. If it was not, all they would see is a muddy brown body of water, no thanks to silt building up over the years.

Sultan Abu Bakar lake has been like this for more than two decades, said Mr Mohamad Ariffin, 45, a vegetable distributor who has lived here all his life.

"People stopped hanging out by the lake after the water got more and more murky," he told The Straits Times at the weekend.

It is not just the colour of the water in the lake and rivers that troubles residents and environmentalists about Cameron Highlands, one of Malaysia's top exporters of vegetables and flowers and one of Singapore's sources of fresh vegetables, from capsicum and cabbage to iceberg lettuce.

Years of development and illegal clearing of hillside land for farming have turned the area into an environmental hot spot.

Farms and hotels are perched - some precariously - on the slopes. In some places, gigantic plastic sheets plaster the hillside to prevent the soil from loosening and triggering a landslide.

Environmentalists say that as more forest vegetation is cleared to make way for farms, it is causing more and more silt to build up in the rivers, including Sungai Bertam and the Sultan Abu Bakar hydroelectric dam. During heavy rain, the rivers and dam are likely to overflow, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.

Last week, water released from the nearly full dam triggered a flash flood that swept Ringlet, a district in Bertam Valley, leaving three people dead and hundreds of homes and vehicles destroyed.

Residents said the waves of water that gushed through the village, carrying mud and debris, were as high as 4m. Many watched in horror from the upper floors of their homes as the mudflow destroyed their furniture, television sets and refrigerators downstairs.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Najib Razak announced when unveiling the 2014 Budget that RM40 million (S$15.7 million) would be allocated to widen and deepen a 3km stretch of the river, and that people living along that part of the river would be relocated.

This will take two to three years, Natural Resources and Environment Minister G. Palanivel said last Saturday.

But environmentalists and geologists say that deepening the river is merely treating the symptoms that could cause a flash flood like the one last week. Excessive rubbish and a lack of silt traps in farms will eventually narrow the river banks again, they argue.

"The government needs to ensure that farms have proper silt traps and farmers stop clearing land illegally," geologist Tajul Anuar Jamaluddin at the National University of Malaysia told The Straits Times. "If not, such a tragedy is bound to happen again."

In the 1990s, the Pahang state government stopped issuing temporary operating licences for land-clearing in response to environmental concerns.

But many farms have taken advantage of lax enforcement to encroach onto state land illegally as demand for vegetables rises.

Activists claim some 1,200ha of land is being cleared illegally for vegetable farming now. Many foreign workers have also been brought in illegally to work and squatter houses are built there.

A farmer who wanted to be known only as Mr Liew claimed that such illegal expansion goes unchecked because some farmers have bribed officers.

"The farmers don't mind paying because they know they will make back from the profits of selling more vegetables," he said.

Last year, Malaysia's Anti-Corruption Commission said it was investigating allegations that some people, including staff of the Cameron Highlands district and land office, had leaked details about raids on illegal land-clearing.

The status of the probe is unknown.

Meanwhile, a community- based group, the Regional Environmental Awareness Cameron Highlands, is doing what it can to get farmers and schoolchildren to recycle plastic sheets and containers used in farming and not to throw them into the river.

"It is only in the past few years that more farmers are paying attention to farming sustainably," said Ms Carroll Lawrence, 44, a founding member and volunteer of the group.

"We still have a long way to go."