THE country’s RM846 million environmental quality monitoring programme (EQMP) did not fail to detect the recent Johor pollution crises former natural resources and environment minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said today, because the EQMP was not an early warning system.

The Santubong MP hit out at his replacement, Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin, after she said her ministry would review the system over its alleged failure to alert authorities to illegal dumping of toxic waste in Sungai Kim Kim in Johor last March and other toxic incidents.

“She should know that the EQMP cannot monitor toxic waste dumping, it was designed for specific purposes,” the former minister said, adding it “had been delivering its intended outputs since it commenced operation”.

“The parameters to be monitored would be determined by the Department of Environment.

“The EQMP was designed by the DoE to monitor ambient air, river and marine environment in Malaysia using globally applied methodology with selected key environmental quality parameters.

“It includes a manual programme where river and marine water samples are collected once in every two months to be analysed for key water quality parameters,” Wan Junaidi said.

Yeo said her ministry was reviewing the EQMP’s performance and efficiency, the legal matters relating to it, and renegotiating the terms of agreement, with the possibility of early termination.

Wan Junaidi said it was irresponsible for Yeo to claim the system had failed and showed her lack of understanding of the system.

He said the monitoring stations consisted of 65 air quality monitoring stations, 30 river monitoring stations and 10 marine water quality monitoring stations.

“The air quality monitoring stations generate air pollution index (API) that is available to the general public through APIMS (Air Pollution Index Malaysia).”

The 30 river automatic stations are located upstream of intake points at major rivers while the automatic marine stations monitor pollution in sensitive marine waters.

“These automatic monitoring stations act as early warning system and, from time to time, they provided early indication of pollution incidents.

“The parameters measured at all the manual and automatic stations – air, river and marine – are the major indicators of the environmental quality as listed in the National Air, River and Marine Water Quality Standards.”

Wan Junaidi said in the case of the toxic dumping at Sg Kim Kim, the river was part of the EQMP manual river water quality monitoring programme.

He said water sampling of the river was taken, according to standard operating procedure (SOP), once every two months because the river did not have automatic station.

“There is no water intake at this river. Nevertheless, the data from the manual programme collected since the EQMP started had clearly indicated the polluted status of this river,” he said.

In Pasir Gudang, Wan Junaidi said the parameters measured in the automatic air quality stations “do not include the toxic gases, which are identified by using other equipment”.

“The automatic air quality monitoring stations in the EQMP are designed to measure the key air quality parameters applied and monitored elsewhere globally.

“The EQMP as designed by the DOE and implemented contractually by Pakar Scieno T W Sdn Bhd provides data related to key environmental quality parameters for ambient environment and are not meant to detect toxic gases that were observed in Pasir Gudang.”

Wan Junaidi said the procurement and the concession were awarded through an open tender process.

Pakar Scieno TW Sdn Bhd was awarded the concession to operate the programme from July 2017 to January 2032.

He said the “hefty cost” charged by the concessionaire – which Yeo said made up almost 30% of DoE’s annual budget and thus depriving the department from critical expenditures –did not come from his ministry’s budget.

“It was direct from the Ministry of Economic Planning,” he said. – July 25, 2019.