BUKIT MERTAJAM – The sound is no music to the ears of Kg Sg Semilang residents in Juru here who begin their daily lives with a loud boom emerging from a 66-year-old quarry.
Located less than 500m from their homes, the sound has been a common rhythm that is heard by almost 300 families.
Ironically, the quarry, which has had an operating licence since 1955, is located deep inside the Bukit Juru Forest Reserve – a hill area that was gazetted as a forest reserve in 1858.
A resident, Mohd Riduan Hassan, 34, told The Vibes, the quarrying activities that have been carried out for so long have affected the quality of life of the residents, and even posed danger from the impact of rock explosions that are done every week.
Many houses have been damaged due to the impact of the explosion, and we even have to face the problem of gravel dust from the quarry site.
“Till when do we want to live in this situation? When the house is damaged and cracked due to the stone explosion, we have to spend our own money to repair the house,” he said when met recently.
Apart from Kg Sg Semilang, the impact of the quarry activity also affected four other villages located nearby, namely Kg Tengah, Kg Sekolah, Bagan Nyior and Kuala Juru, involving more than 2,000 residents.
The Vibes had the opportunity to enter the location of the quarry site to get first-hand view of the Tanjung Batu beach and found that it was too close to the quarry area, hence causing the beach to be deserted and overgrown with bushes due to a lack of visitors.
The effects of the demolition and exploration of the Bukit Juru forest reserve can also be seen from the Penang Bridge and the Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge in Batu Kawan.
The head of Kg Sg Semilang, Suhaimi Ramli, 50, said when he was young, Tanjung Batu beach was often lively with various leisure activities, but it started to disappear slowly over the past 30 years.
In the past, the beach was very beautiful. I remember, the people often held parties there in certain months. But now, the beach is derelict and not well maintained. No one wants to go there anymore because it is located close to the quarry area.”
Last year, the quarry issue caught the attention of the state government when the quarry’s owner applied for three new additional lots covering 14.78 hectares or the equivalent of 20 football fields.
Having learnt about the proposed new lots, the residents staged a protest in September last year, which eventually led to the rejection of the application by the state government earlier this year.
If the application for the three new lots was approved, the residents were expected to face various ill effects as a result of quarry activity until 2062.
Bukit Tengah assemblyman Gooi Hsiao Leung said that the quarry owner, however, filed a suit against the state government last August for refusing to approve the proposed new quarry lot.
“As a result of discussions with the residents recently, I will represent them to apply to the court to intervene as a party.
“We want to intervene to oppose the quarry’s claim because we are aware that the proposal has a huge impact on the residents,” said Gooi, who is also a lawyer.
He said that when Bukit Juru was first gazetted as a forest reserve, it had an area of 159.62 hectares, which is now shrinking and only covers an area of 156.77 hectares since it was taken over as a quarry area.
In fact, he said, the quarry exploration activity there only started with an area of 0.01 hectares and became bigger in the 1980s.
In the past, the quarry area was very small and did not bother the villagers, but the area grew in the 80s when the previous state government approved the area as a new quarry area, thus removing it from the forest reserve.”
Gooi said, Bukit Juru is the only hill and nature that still exists in the Bukit Tengah area, and it should be well taken care of to ensure its sustainability continues to be preserved.
“If the quarry operation is still allowed, I believe in the long run Bukit Juru with all its beauty will disappear,” he said.
The quarry owner could not be reached for comment. – The Vibes, December 18, 2021
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