ALOR STAR: "Over my dead body." That is the message from Kedah Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor when he told Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow over the latter's call for the setting up of Ulu Muda Basin Authority.
Describing the suggestion as a move to interfere in Kedah's territory, Sanusi said he would never allow the proposal to proceed under his administration.
"(They) should not be meddling into other state's territory… if they are depending (on another state) and wanted to reap benefit from their dependence, just pay what they ought to pay. No more free feeding… as simple as that," Sanusi told the New Straits Times when contacted.
He was responding to the Penang Chief Minister's call to the federal government to consider setting up the Ulu Muda Basin to manage water resources in Kedah's Ulu Muda water catchment area.
On Monday, Chow once again urged Putrajaya to consider the proposal by the Penang government and Penang Water Supply Corporation (PBAPP).
He was reported as stressing that the water catchment area in Ulu Muda needs to be managed professionally as it is an important catchment area to channel raw water supply to three states namely Perlis, Kedah and Penang.
Chow was commenting on RimbaWatch's claim that logging in the Ulu Muda Forest Reserve caused Tasik Muda siltation to form and become polluted.
The environmental group claimed that a study conducted through satellite image monitoring found that Tasik Muda started collecting silt deposits since March last year and the deposits were found to be growing in October last year.
It further claimed that the situation is expected to affect about 80 per cent of the water source to Penang which depends entirely on the supply from the Ulu Muda catchment area that flows through Sungai Muda.
Sanusi had brushed off claims that the turbidity in the Tasik Muda reservoir was caused by logging activity.
Instead, he claimed the turbidity was caused by sand, soil and logs debris flowed from four main rivers that are flowing into the reservoir over the past 50 years.
Earlier, Kedah's Public Works, Natural Resources, Water Supply, and Resources and Environmental Committee Mohamad Yusoff @ Munir Zakaria was reported as saying that no logging activity occurs in areas designated as protected forests in Ulu Muda Forest Reserve.