Govt, businesses looking ahead even as air quality is good for now
Feng Zengkun Environment Correspondent & Amelia Teng
Straits Times 27 Jun 13;
FOR a brief spell yesterday, Singapore's skies were the cleanest they have been in two weeks.
Between 3pm and 6pm, Singaporeans breathed "good" air as the three-hour Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) dipped below 51. It hit a low of 38 at 4pm, before climbing again.
Even so, despite the better quality air and the reprieve from the haze the past five days, the Government yesterday continued to roll out preparation plans as it cautioned that the respite could be short-lived.
"Our latest meteorological assessment is that the haze in this region is likely to persist for quite some time more, and Singapore remains at risk," Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan said yesterday.
Visiting cleaners and a water treatment plant, he outlined how cleaning and waste collection services could be slowed if the haze returned with a vengeance, and urged Singaporeans not to let their guard down.
However, he also gave the assurance that the country's clean water supply was not in danger, as its treatment and distribution process is largely automated.
"Whatever happens, your water is going to continue to flow from your taps, and your water is going to be good and safe to drink," he said.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry said in a statement yesterday that it is working with manufacturers and suppliers to replenish its stocks and to ensure there are enough masks here.
To date, it has released a total of 4.15 million N95 masks from its stockpile. This includes one million masks which have gone to the People's Association for distribution to low-income families, and the balance to retailers.
"The cost of the masks, including transport and storage, is recovered from the retailers," the ministry said in a reply to queries from The Straits Times.
It warned the public against counterfeit masks, and advised consumers to buy masks from major supermarkets and pharmacies.
People are also advised to approach the manufacturers or distributors if they doubt the authenticity of the masks.
Yesterday, the Education Ministry said it is also monitoring the haze situation closely, ahead of the start of the school term next week.
It will refer to the authorities' health advisories and will work with schools to "put in place appropriate measures to ensure the well-being of our students and staff", said a spokesman.
Those expecting the spell of better quality air to last may be disappointed: The National Environment Agency (NEA) predicts a slight haze today and tomorrow, though thundery showers are forecast over the two days.
This is because low-level winds blowing from the south or south-west may bring the pollution from raging fires in Indonesia back here.
NEA added that the 24-hour levels of smaller, toxic particles called PM2.5 are also expected to remain slightly higher than usual today.
It said that for this reason, pregnant women, the elderly and children should continue to minimise prolonged outdoor activity, while those with chronic lung and heart diseases should stay indoors if possible.
MOH reveals contingency plans for haze
Olivia Siong Channel NewsAsia 27 Jun 13;
SINGAPORE: Health Minister Gan Kim Yong on Thursday announced his ministry's contingency plans if the haze gets worse.
The contingency plans will focus on three areas. They are how to ensure patient safety, how to meet demand if there is a surge in the number of patients seeking help, and how to minimise disruption to services should haze conditions worsen.
In terms of ensuring patient safety, Mr Gan, who was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a visit to the Toa Payoh Polyclinic on Thursday morning, said polyclinics have implemented a triage system to identify those more vulnerable, like those with respiratory problems.
To meet a possible surge in demand, Mr Gan said besides the government subsidy scheme for vulnerable groups seeking medical attention for haze related ailments, which would help divert some patients from polyclinics to GPs, manpower will also be redeployed.
In the hospital setting, Mr Gan said plans to convert spaces to accommodate more beds have already started.
However, Mr Gan added that for now, the demand at the hospital end is still manageable as most patients still visit polyclinics first.
Mr Gan also said that some 2,000 polyclinic patients have tapped into the government subsidy scheme for vulnerable groups seeking medical attention for haze related ailments.
Those in the vulnerable groups, which include the elderly and children, will only need to pay S$10 under the scheme if they visit the polyclinic.
Mr Gan said more than 550 general practitioner (GP) clinics have also signed up under the scheme, and he hopes more will come on board.
Those who visit a GP will receive a S$30 subsidy for their bill from the Health Ministry.
The number of those who have tapped into the scheme for visits to GPs is not available yet.
- CNA/fa
Quality of drinking water unaffected by haze: Vivian
Grace Chua And Feng Zengkun Environmental Correspondents
Straits Times 27 Jun 13;
DESPITE the particles swirling in the haze, the quality of Singapore's drinking water remains intact, unaffected by the rain of the past two days, Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said yesterday.
The reason: The particles would have been filtered out when the water is being treated at the reservoir, he said.
The assurance was given by Dr Balakrishnan during his visit to a water treatment plant, when he also stressed that whatever happens, water will continue to flow from the taps, and it will "be good and safe to drink".
He said: "PUB has been monitoring water quality quite obsessively over the past couple of weeks and... there has been absolutely no impact on the quality of our water both in terms of raw water and treated water which we are putting out to the public."
Agreeing, Mr Chong Kee Sen, vice-president of the Institution of Engineers Singapore, reiterated that local tap water is safe to drink.
"In the treatment of water, particulates that are smaller than 2.5 microns are filtered out," he said.
Yesterday, the National Environment Agency (NEA) also said the rain that fell in the past two days was not toxic.
Neither was Tuesday's rainfall acid rain, it added.
Acid rain, said NEA deputy chief executive officer Joseph Hui in response to queries on Tuesday, results from sulphur dioxide that reacts with water to form sulphuric acid. Haze particles do not produce such a reaction.
But studies have shown that rain does not fully wash the microscopic PM2.5 particles from the air, unlike PM10 particles.
Smaller, lighter particles linger in the air and take longer to be removed, the NEA said. What is more, new pollution could arise as burning in Indonesia continues.
Beyond putting to rest people's fears, the NEA also announced measures it will take should the 24-hour Pollutant Standards Index reading cross 300, which indicates hazardous air.
The cleaning of public areas, rubbish collection and recycling services may have to be scaled back to protect workers, it said.
Outdoor dengue inspections may also have to be reduced, but there will be no let-up on checks on homes because the epidemic shows no sign of slowing.
As for school attendance, Dr Balakrishnan said it was too early to tell if schools should reopen as scheduled on Monday.
His ministry is monitoring the situation and would work with the Education Ministry, he said.
Water quality won’t be affected by haze: Balakrishnan
Woo Sian Boon Today Online 27 Jun 13;
SINGAPORE — If the haze reaches hazardous levels, some of the National Environment Agency (NEA)’s services, such as waste collection, public cleaning and even dengue inspections, may be affected by manpower shortfalls.
Nevertheless, the country’s water supply and the quality of drinking water will not be affected, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan yesterday assured as he laid out his ministry’s haze contingency plans.
He said: “As far as PUB is concerned, there’s no such thing as a stop-work order. Whatever happens, your water is going to continue to flow from your tap … (and) is going to continue to be good, safe to drink.”
Speaking to reporters after a visit to PUB’s Chestnut Avenue Waterworks, Dr Balakrishnan explained that the water agency’s seven water treatment plants are “highly automated” and have stockpiles of fuel and chemicals to produce drinking water.
PUB Deputy Director of Water Supply Plants Ooi Keat Guan said the agency has been monitoring water quality over the past couple of weeks and quality standards are “normal”, as per before the haze crisis.
Allaying fears that micron-sized particles that are present in the haze might be found in drinking water, Mr Ooi explained that PUB uses a multi-barrier treatment process in its waterworks that is able to remove these particles.
First, coagulants are added to “lump” particles together in raw water. These larger and heavier particles are removed in a sedimentation tank.
Next, the water is passed through membranes that can filter particles of up to 0.02 microns in size.
Lastly, the filtered water is disinfected with chlorine to remove bacteria and viruses before being pumped into the distribution system.
As for dengue inspections, Dr Balakrishnan said there was no let-up in the operations of the NEA’s vector-control team despite the hazy conditions last week as Singapore “is still in the danger period” for dengue.
Sending his condolences to the family of the 86-year-old man who died from dengue on Monday, he said the situation “illustrates that we are having to deal with two crises simultaneously”.
Yesterday, the authorities reported a fourth dengue death in five weeks— that of a 68-year-old Indonesian man who was being treated for dengue here.
Separately, NEA Chief Executive Andrew Tan said plans remain underway for Mr Ronnie Tay, 49, to take over the agency on July 1.
He added that Mr Tay — who was previously Chief Executive of the Infocomm Development Agency — had been understudying him for the past two weeks.
Mr Tan, 46, who has headed the NEA since 2009, will be attending an Advanced Management Programme overseas prior to his next posting.
A clear gaze at haze through the years
Bruce Gale Straits Times 27 Jun 13;
IT ALL began on the evening of Oct 13, 1972. "Everything was perfect here until about 7pm. Then, suddenly, large clouds of white smoke formed all over our housing estate."
The caller to The Straits Times newsroom in Kim Seng Road was from Toa Payoh, but it soon became clear that the problem was island-wide. "Can you please tell us what is going on?"
Some callers complained of being "suffocated" in their flats. Others said the "fog" was affecting their eyes. The haze had appeared in earlier weeks, but it was not nearly as bad.
With no regularly updated air pollution measure in place then, it is impossible now to assess how serious the situation was. But with callers complaining that they could barely see adjacent blocks of flats, the haze was almost certainly very thick.
Singapore is fortunate in that it does not experience the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and destructive typhoons that periodically strike other parts of the region.
But for the past four decades, it has had to contend with increasingly serious bouts of air pollution caused by forest fires in Indonesia's Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Back in 1972, Singapore already had laws to control air pollution from vehicles and factories. The establishment of the Environment Ministry in 1970 also meant that there were officials specifically charged with enforcing them.
Official measurements of air quality samples of industrial smoke from local factories quickly determined that the source of the problem was external.
This led Singapore's Meteorological Service to assess the haze over the island as coming from fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra. Confirmation came later from satellite images and Singaporean air crews flying over the region.
The problem recurred intermittently throughout the 1970s. One report in May 1979 quoted Bedok residents as complaining that they could not even see neighbouring blocks of flats 400 metres away.
With no widely-agreed term used to describe the phenomenon, words like "fog", "smoke" and even "mist" were far more likely to be used to describe the haze than they are today.
But memories also appear to have been short, perhaps because the problem was not as deeply engraved on the national consciousness as now. In April 1983, in response to yet another haze-filled month, the Meteorological Service said the previous four weeks had been the haziest in Singapore for 30 years. It said that visibility had never before dropped below five km except when it rained.
The potentially negative effects on public health were also less widely recognised. In 1983, when local media reported cases of eye irritation and respiratory problems, government spokesmen responded that the air pollutant levels were within World Health Organisation standards.
But by October 1991, when the haze got so bad that the 73-storey then Westin Stamford Hotel was barely visible from the Fort Road flyover of the East Coast Parkway, Singaporeans had an objective measurement to refer to.
The newly introduced Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) peaked that year at 97.
Thinking ahead, the government announced in 1993 that Singapore's semi-automatic air quality monitoring network would be replaced by a computerised telemetric system. The system eventually made possible the regular air quality updates we receive today.
But while many regard 1997 as the year the haze really entered the national consciousness, the turning point for officialdom was probably September 1994, when the PSI hit 142. It prompted the government to acknowledge for the first time that air pollution levels were a threat to public health.
This was also the year an inter- ministerial task force was set up to examine what could be done if pollution levels rose further. Responding to requests from the public, the Environment Ministry also began releasing additional air pollution updates, at 9pm and 7am, in addition to its 4pm reading.
In 1995, Asean environment ministers met in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the haze. It was to be the first of many such regional meetings designed to tackle a problem that just would not go away.
In September 1997, thick smog caused by forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan blanketed the entire region. There were flight delays and cancellations at Changi Airport. The PSI hit a record 226 - in the "very unhealthy" range.
The government responded by providing three-hourly PSI updates on TV and radio. Emergency medical centres were set up in housing estates. Other air pollution sources were closely controlled, with penalties on smoky vehicles raised considerably.
After much discussion, in September 1998, Asean adopted a plan to deal with the annual forest fires causing the problem. Malaysia was to oversee preventive measures; Indonesia was given responsibility for fire-fighting resources and deployment; and Singapore had a regional monitoring role.
Back home, the government was continuously refining its approach. In 2002, the National Environment Agency was set up as a statutory board under the Ministry of Environment (now Ministry of Environment and Water Resources). In October of that year, with the PSI going no higher than 79, it almost appeared as if the problem might soon be resolved.
This seemed confirmed in 2003, when Asean members agreed to sign an environmental treaty in a bid to control the recurring haze issue. Sadly, however, Indonesia has not ratified it.
In subsequent years, observers began to learn just how intractable the problem was. In 2005, when fires in Indonesia again spread the haze throughout the region, Singapore was lucky. Favourable winds kept the worst of it away. The PSI stayed below 95.
In October 2006, the PSI reached 150, its highest in the new millennium. In a letter to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, (later released to the press), Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong expressed his disappointment that the problem had not been resolved.
Increasingly, the government was concerned about the economic cost and public health implications. In June 2009, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim expressed concern that hazy conditions could affect the Formula 1 race.
This year, the haze has returned with a vengeance. At noon on June 21, the three-hour PSI surged to a new high of 401, surpassing the previous record of 371 at 1pm the day before. Both readings were well within the hazardous range.
Air purifiers are sold out in local stores, and the government has begun distributing N95 masks to vulnerable and needy groups.
Diplomatic talks on the haze are again in motion. The Indonesians have identified companies responsible. Singaporeans hope that this time, the talks will translate into action to alleviate the haze for the rest of this year - and prevent it in future.
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