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SANDAKAN – The town here is going to be filled with sewage if the government refuses to allocate emergency funds to fix its broken main sewerage pipe here.
The sewerage pipes in Sandakan town, which have been in use since the 1990s, are now damaged, according to a source familiar with the matter. This could possibly be the cause of several sinkholes in town over the past couple of months.
When an underground sewerage pipe breaks or leaks, wastewater seeps into the soil around it, causing the ground foundation to collapse and creating sinkholes over time.
A worsening sinkhole in the centre of Sandakan town has been attributed to a broken main sewerage pipe. This pipe moves wastewater from Bandar Leila and town buildings to a water treatment plant here.
According to Tg Papat assemblyman Datuk Frankie Poon, the pipe has been damaged and disconnected since last September, but authorities had only installed a temporary pipe over the sinkhole and did not provide allocation to fix the problem for good.
“Since the main pipe in town is broken and disconnected, many pipes around town have also been blocked, and this can cause more sinkholes.
“If not sinkholes, we will have sewage leaking from these pipes. It means that if we don’t fix the main sewerage pipe, we will live in a town with sewage everywhere,” he told The Vibes.
Poon, who is also Sabah DAP chairman, said despite local representatives including himself having urged the Public Works Department for immediate repairs, they were told the department did not have the emergency funds to do so.
He added that the temporary pipe is not a permanent fix as it is unhygienic and exposed as well as smaller in size, leading to regular blockage.
“Just days ago, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Md Noor announced an increased income of RM1 billion to the state coffers for 2021, but the government cannot provide an emergency allocation to repair broken sewerage pipes in Sandakan,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sandakan MP Vivian Wong said the pipe problem is compounded by Covid-19 as some countries are testing their sewerage to detect the virus, adding that sewage can contaminate groundwater sources that the district depends on.
“It is unacceptable that Sandakan as the second-largest city in Sabah with a population of more than 500,000 people is still without a complete centralised sewage treatment facility.
“Sandakan currently holds the notorious record of having the one and only marine outfall (discharging untreated sewage directly into the sea) in the state.”
Wong said while she appreciates the government’s effort to launch the Sewage Treatment Plant and Sewerage Pipeline Construction Project, she calls for the project to stick to its deadline of 2025 without delay.
Last month, Sabah Works Minister Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin launched the project here, promising that it would stretch from Melanta (Batu Sapi) to Mile 3, including the town here. – The Vibes, February 20, 2022
