THE delay in cleaning up the toxic pollution of Sg Kim Kim in Johor’s Pasir Gudang area was due to lack of funds and the failure of those in command to take immediate action, said a source involved in works to clean up the contamination.

“Our government, Department of Environment (DOE), didn’t look at it seriously until it was too late. When the contamination happened, we wanted to meet but they said there was no budget for it,” the source told The Malaysian Insight.

“They should have cleaned up the toxins first before looking at the budget issue. The surrounding community also did not take any action, but just watched when the industrial waste was poured into the river.”

The source, who has prior experience in cleaning up industrial waste, said the government did not have a sufficient budget to clean up the areas as suggested by the contractor.

In fact, the available budget was not even enough to clean up half the area suggested, he added.

“The main problem, is that the state government did not have enough money. The tender was given to one contractor, but their allocation for equipment was insufficient and they had to use the expertise from other companies.

“When money is involved, the state government was not brave enough to table the budget. According to our estimates, the clean-up area should be in the radius of 4.5km but there was only enough money for 1.5km,” said the source, who declined to reveal the total estimated cost of clearing up the contamination.

Six days after the contamination was first reported, the Johor state government said it would allocate RM6.4 million for clean-up efforts.

The clean up of the toxic wastes at the river began at 2pm on Thursday.

According to the source, private companies (involved in industrial wastes) have an emergency fund to handle such situations.

“We have a fund in our company in case of natural disasters and we will act immediately.

“There’s no question about ‘quotations’ or ‘long discussions’ as dealing with the contamination is top priority.

“But we can still see the industrial wastes in the river… toxins that they don’t think are serious.

“But toxins are not fires. Fires can be seen. You can’t see toxins.

“Among the chemicals we identified were cyanide, kerosene and methane.

“Methane also exists in food but the levels are not dangerous. It’s only hazardous when mixed with other chemicals.”

He said the authorities initially thought that the materials dumped into the river were part of scheduled waste dumping.

“This is not waste from cleaning machines. There were a lot of chemical elements identified but only a few have been highlighted,” said the source.

He said that some of the materials could have long term effects on people’s lungs and kidneys.

The Sg Kim Kim contamination was first detected on March 7 when SMK Pasir Putih and SK Pasir Putih students fell ill as a result of inhaling fumes from the chemicals.

Following that, 111 schools in Pasir Gudang have been closed indefinitely while Johor state exco for health, environment and agriculture Dr Sahruddin Jamal said that there were 1,906 people affected between March 11-14.

A total of 276 of the cases have been referred to Sultan Ismail Hospital while another 1,483 are at the Medic Base in Dewan Taman Pasir Putih. – March 16, 2019.