I SUPPORT Cheah Kah Seng’s views in the letter, “Reclamation taking Penang backwards” (NST, July 25).
It is alleged that the Department of Environment’s 72 conditions for the approval of the Penang reclamation project do not include a modern sewerage system to prevent human waste from flowing out to sea.
In 1966, someone from the Penang Irrigation and Drainage Department told me he was sent to Honolulu, Hawaii, to study how their sewerage system worked without waste flowing into the sea, unlike George Town’s system then.
He told the state government that Honolulu’s modern sewerage system was too expensive.
Since then, successive state governments have not done anything to improve our sewerage system.
In 1982, a friend from my college in England told me his body itched after swimming in Batu Ferringhi.
I just smiled and said nothing as I knew the sea currents carried George Town’s waste there.
If there is no modern sewerage system for the three islands under reclamation, the livelihoods of 200 fishermen and their families will cease, and fish and shrimp will disappear.
DR MUBARAK CHAN
Kuala Lumpur