Green lung gone; human lungs affected
Published on: Thursday, March 05, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: Hazardous dust clouds from the RM250m High Court project which had chopped off the head of a once beautifully forested knoll sandwiched between Tuaran Road, Jalan Kolam and Jalan Sena, are affecting residents at nearby Taman Jasmin. Besides the choking dust storm, a cherished green buffer most looked at by motorists from the overpass bridge over Tuaran Road had also been thoughtlessly whacked clear by the contractor.
ADVERTISEMENT
It is unclear how many of the precious raintrees hugging the perimeters of the site had been felled but one large tree that must have stood there for almost a century, judging from the trunk and reach of branches now stands vulnerable."What you are seeing now is dust everywhere, on trees, it settles into your bedrooms, into your beds, into your bed sheets even though I have closed all the bedroom windows, which is the worst thing because you are breathing dust while sleeping and 24-hours a day."It settles on your cupboard, cushions, chairs, tables, kitchen, into food that you cook, and now the dry season combined with strong winds makes it worse. I am already beginning to feel the bad health effects. I am having a sore throat, so is my wife," said one resident, Datuk Rajah Indan. "They are cutting down and taking off the soil from the hill, what you are seeing are bulldozing and endless traffic of lorries carrying the soil out and whipping up dust storms from acres of excavated and exposed soil as they rolled out of the site," he said.
ADVERTISEMENT
"The dust storm is getting worse especially it's now March and drought season with searing heat joined by strong winds," he said, adding he is forced to sweep four times a day.Since this 1Malaysia project is about a new seat of justice in the Capital City and approved by the Central Board, it should be a "model" of "consideration" on impacts on people, their health, ecology, property, Rajah Indan opined.
ADVERTISEMENT
"But that consideration has been lacking, it looks as if they are indifferent, couldn't care less what happens. "Everybody knows development has to take place, but they should have a system of controlling this so that the dust doesn't pollute a prime housing estate right in the heart of Kota Kinabalu, anything to keep dust storm at bay, possibly a cover crop of creepers even for a while, to retain the green look, the soil, to absorb C02, to maintain ecology and not expose such a bad landscape look to all," Rajah Indan said. "Another problem is that after the forest was cleared, squirrels and monkeys now come to my house because these animals have no more habitats and food," he said. "I have been staying next to a beautiful green part of KK since the 1970s and all of a sudden it's changed to this," lamented Rajah, whose immediate neighbours family members of late famed cartoonist Datuk George Chin or Mingo, Datuk Vincent Pung, CEO of Sabah Credit Corporation, Michael Tong, a well known Chartered Accountant, and also a play school Taska Evelyn. "One minute you wipe it, the next minute dust as fine as powder smear every single item again in the house, nothing is spared from this dust invasion. So keeping everything dust-free has become a constant obsession now," said the Filipina maid of a homeowner there."Everyone of the houses on Lorong Ru Pokok, Taman Jasmin, have to close up tight. How can we eat when our dining tables are full of dust," said one Chinese grandmother, who claimed she even called up City Hall many times to take action but nobody picked up the phone. "The Town Board should take the health of the people seriously, all the airborne dust. The two houses closest to the excavation site are suffering like hell," she asserted.She scoffed at the feeble dust mitigation efforts by the developer by using a half-inch hose to spray at the wheels of lorries as almost irrelevant. "It's my habit to take a little walk down Lorong Ru Pokok toward Bukit Shariff Osman but now when I come back, my face is full of dust and I must wash my face," she said.City Hall's Engineering Section dispatched staff to the site Wednesday to check on the dust complaints.But long before the dust pollution unhappy voices howled about the visual pollution – the ugly decimation of "Luyang's only green lung". "Why is Daily Express silent about it?" a respectable public figure vented what he perceived may be a 'conspiracy of silence'. The misperception should not arise if building sector professionals follow ethics.The assumption was that the green buffer all around the perimeters of the hill would be retained in observance of that set-back rules to keep the project look green.Indeed, the developer initially kept a nice ring of trees around the slopes of the hill untouched, giving the impression a green buffer will remain for good, setting in a public complacency. But to everybody's shock, almost 100 metres of green stands vanished overnight, from the most visible slope directly across the busy overhead bridge spanning the Tuaran Road below, where a soothing stretch of trees, including a captivating grove of yellow bamboos, were chopped out of sight completely, exposing a desert-like core excavation site to everybody's disgust. But too late. Public feedback focused especially on the eventual fate of the massive and sight-comforting raintree at one corner of the overpass approaching Jalan Kolam.So far, this raintree has not been chopped but some of the inner branches hovering the project site have clearly been clipped and in injured, indicating no real care to keep it wholesome.Besides, excavation had buried the roots under hefty earthwork so it's not sure how this will eventually affect this cherished green icon. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
Daily Express Malaysia
