City Hall, SESB plan to inspect damaged sewerage

City Hall plans to inspect the section of Jalan KK-By Pass, near Australia Place, together with Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) after discovering that the sewerage in the area was inadvertently damaged when some power lines were installed beneath the road.

A City Hall spokesman said a remote-check revealed that the company’s cable trunking cut into some of the sewer mains

“The red conduits, in which the live wires are enclosed, can been seen in the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage our Engineering and Information Technology Departments obtained, when a mini camera was sent through the pipes last month,” he said.

The agency suspected that its sewerage might be compromised due to the intermittent toilet woes at the shophouses near the community centre.

The submersible surveillance was deemed to be the most cost-efficient means of verifying these suspicions, according to the spokesman.

“A report is being put together about the damage, which will be submitted to SESB.

“We hope to conduct a joint-inspection of the site with the company’s representatives, before proceeding with discussions on how SESB intends to remedy this problem.”

City Hall staff looking at the CCTV footage as the camera goes to the sewer-line for these shops along Jalan Dewan.

The spokesman was responding to feedback about the overflowing manholes near shops and eateries on Jalan Dewan. Many proprietors were displeased about the stench which permeated their premises.

Others had wearied of listening to complaints from their customers about the malfunctioning toilets at their units.

They claimed that that this inconvenience had been occurring on and off for months.

The spokesman said the agency was aware of the sewerage irregularities in this part of the State Capital.

“Our technicians checked on the manholes around the shophouses when this was first brought to our attention in the middle of last year,” he said.

“The contractor’s workers tried ‘sewer-rodding’ to dislodge the blockages.

“When this failed to do the trick, they even tried pouring chemical solvents into the sewer-line in the hope of breaking down these obstructions.”

He said a desludging tanker subsequently went to Jalan Dewan to offer rate-payers some relief from their toilet woes.

“We will continue to periodically pump out the effluent from the area to try and assist the shop-operators.

“However, the tanker cannot possibly contain all the sewage released by the Australia Place premises here at one go.”

He explained that the tanker had a 5,000-litre capacity.

A staff with the agency’s sewerage contractor got into the pipe to guide the camera as it moved through the effluent.

“It generally takes several trips to pump out the contents from all the manholes but the sewer line will be full again within a matter of days.”

City Hall had initially wanted to have the CCTV check made in August, according to him.

However, he said, this endeavour had to be put off because of the high levels of effluent in the sewer pipes at that time.

“Our staff later discovered that both the existing pump and the one on stand-by at the Australia Place pumping-station had broken down.”

A spokeswoman for the Sewage Services Department, which looks after the pumping-station, said these devices malfunctioned at the end of July.

“Many of the individual components have gradually worn down as the pumps were first put in place decades ago,” she said.

She said new pumps were successfully installed at Australia Place by October.

The contractor, appointed to put these devices in place, was a month overdue in completing this work due to a problem with a fixture at the premises, according to her.

“The existing ladder had to be replaced as it was found to have corroded away.

“The pumps could only be safely lowered inside the station once a new one had been put up.”

Each of these devices weighed between 900-1,000 kilogrammes, according to her.

“A team of the contractor’s workers had to go down to a depth of about 10 metres in order to install the pumps.”

She said pumps under the Department’s jurisdiction were maintained on a monthly basis.

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