Closer watch on coastal areas

Published by The Star• 23/10/2019

A jetty leading to Cemacs.

THE Penang government hopes to collaborate with Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies (Cemacs) on environmental impact assessment of state projects.

Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said the government welcomed views from the university’s marine research centre including those on the Penang South Reclamation (PSR) project.

“We will even fund the studies and so on, ” he told a press conference after visiting Cemacs in Teluk Bahang.

Accompanying Chow were Penang tourism, arts, culture and heritage committee chairman Yeoh Soon Hin and USM vice-chancellor Prof Dr Faisal Rafiq Mahamd Adikan.

Cemacs director Professor Datuk Dr Aileen Tan Shau Hwai said she intended to set up a task force with government support under the state environment committee to assess and prevent further mass fish kills in Penang.

She said the proposed task force would partner with the Department of Fisheries and Department of Environment to monitor Penang’s coastal areas as well as rivers and coastal sites in Kedah.

“We want to stretch the monitoring to our neighbour because the water there runs off to us and certain factors that may contribute to the death of fish could be from the neighbouring areas, ” she said.

Prof Tan said the mass fish kill incidents in April and August this year were due to lack of dissolved oxygen in the water.

She said the heavy thunderstorms and strong winds that hit Penang in August and the sudden algae bloom were some of the factors that contributed to the massive loss of dissolved oxygen. — Bernama