KOTA KINABALU: Sabah has an ambitious plan for a RM4bil dam to resolve its water supply issues, but engineers here are questioning whether the state really needs an inland dam to deal with the problem.
They said inland dams was no longer an option in the 21st century with most countries looking at alternatives, particularly coastal dams, to minimise the negative impact on the environment.
Former Sabah Water Department director Datuk Dr Amarjit Singh and water engineer Lim Sin Poh said Sabah needs a paradigm shift to meet its water and power needs in the future.
Their comments were in reference to Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor’s announcement last Friday that a RM4bil hydro-electric dam would be built in Ulu Padas, Tenom as a solution to Sabah’s water supply woes.
The groundbreaking will take place in October. The project is expected to be completed in August 2026.
However, Amarjit and Lim – who are members of the International Water Association – said in a joint statement yesterday that for Sabah to move forward, it should consider having a coastal reservoir instead, which is an innovative concept of storing floodwater from a river system before it enters the sea.
“It is a paradigm shift in water resource development where water is stored downstream of the river, preferably near the river-sea confluence, rather than the conventional method of storing water in inland dams,” Lim said.
Statistics showed that the world discharges 42,800 cubic km/year of freshwater into the sea with most of it being floodwater, he added.
