GEORGE TOWN – Penang Water Supply Corp is calling on Penang residents to reduce their water consumption by 10% from now until June to guarantee an adequate supply for the state throughout the year.
The state water utility’s chief executive, K. Pathmanathan, advised consumers to also conserve water until the arrival of rain to replenish the raw water reserves of the Air Itam and Teluk Bahang dams.
“In March, (Penang Water Supply Corp) recorded 66.5mm of rain in the Air Itam Dam catchment area and has been working to ‘stabilise’ the effective capacity of this dam through the implementation of the Air Itam Dam Action Plan 2024.
“The dam’s effective capacity dropped by 2% within a 31-day period, while the Teluk Bahang Dam saw an 11% decrease during the same time frame, with 133mm of rainfall recorded in its catchment area in March,” he said in a statement today.
He clarified that the maximum effective capacity of the Teluk Bahang Dam stood at 18,240 million litres (ML), while that of the Air Itam Dam was 2,160 ML. Therefore, a 1% decline in the effective capacity of the Teluk Bahang Dam roughly translates to an 8.4% decrease in the effective capacity of the Air Itam Dam.
Pathmanathan added that international weather forecasts indicated that the El Nino phenomenon, which had brought hot and dry conditions in the first quarter of 2024, was likely to give way to the La Nina phenomenon, which would be wet and rainy, from May, June or July this year.
“METMalaysia predicts moderate rainfall for Penang throughout April, May, June and July. However, this is only a forecast, and we cannot guarantee that the actual rainfall will be adequate to notably enhance the effective capacity of the Air Itam and Teluk Bahang Dams,” he stated. – April 6, 2024