KOTA MARUDU: Household taps are drying up since the past week in this northern town of Sabah due to dripping supply from water treatment facilities and pumphouses at the Pangapuyan and Bandau rivers, whose levels are critically low because of the current drought.

"Even chickens can cross the river safely," said a villager here in describing the low water level of the Bandau River, which together with Pangapuyan, is the main source of water for the district, both for household use and irrigation.

To conserve water supply, authorities are opting for water rationing if it does not rain in the coming weeks.

Kota Marudu Member of Parliament Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili who is a Minister in the Prime Minister's Department had advised the people to use water sparingly, and appealed for understanding among padi farmers, especially those affected by the rescheduling of irrigation water supply due to the low level of the Bandau River.

Dr Ongkili said that water rationing for household and irrigation purposes may be imposed if there was no rain in the next three weeks.

In the meantime a long-time solution to the water woes in the district was being sought, said Ongkili when closing the district's Land Utilisation Committee meeting, here Thursday.

"It is not unusual to see water supply being cut off during excessive rains because floods can damage the piping system or water shortage occurring if dry spells go beyond a mere three weeks," he added.

He said the water woes had been around for the past 15 years, obviously a once and for all solution was necessary.

Dr Ongkili said that a reason for the problem was the insufficient capacity of the Simpangan pump house and water treatment here.

Although the district had another pumphouse that has a bigger capacity, it is primarily supplying water to residents in the nearby district of Kudat, he said.

There was also a high incidence of non-revenue water (NRW) in the area, which Ongkili said, could be as high as 70 percent due to leakages and other reasons.

He said that the solution was for Kudat to find its own water source as well as to expand the capacity of the two pumphouses.

NRW problem should also be addressed by relining the entire Kota Marudu town with new pipes, and to stop logging activities especially in designated water catchment areas, he said.

He appealed to the Forestry Department to review a logging licence issued to a company to conduct logging within an approximately 810 hectares of titled land as the area had been identified to be part of the water catchment area for the district.

The company has been logging since 1986 and the area had been overlogged many times. The villagers complained that timber had been taken outside the titled land and this contributed to the destruction of water catchment areas, he said.

Kota Marudu requires about 14 million litres per day (mld) but the Simpangan pumphouse can only supply 5mld. The Bandau pumphouse is diverting 7mld to Kota Marudu but a bigger portion of the supply, 23mld, is supplied to households in Kudat.

There were also many villages especially those near foothills, depending on gravity-feed water system and were in grave need of financial allocation from the state and federal government, Dr Ongkili said.

After the land utilisation committee meeting, Dr Ongkili visitied the Simpangan pump house as well as the logging company concerned to inspect logging activities in the area.