Why Admire Her Old Water and Not NeWater

Sep 2011 (DRAFT)

One day during one of my morning bike rides I took a detour to the water processing plant off Upper Changi Road (near Singapore Expo). On the site is a new water processing plant that uses reverse osmosis to produce what the local company doing it calls 'NeWater'. Opposite that new plant is the previous one that used to process water from a few ponds next to it. It has been decommissioned and being demolished, and a continuous stream of trucks were dumping soil to fill up the ponds there.

With all those ponds, the land area occupied by the old plant was much larger than the NeWater plant. That, I am sure, was one of the reasons why they switched treatment approach - their land is 'valuable real estate'.

From outside the entrance of the old plant I saw many white herons around an unfilled pond next to the entrance. So I went about 20 feet into the compound to take in that beautiful sight before it disappears forever.

A guard approached and told me that I could not enter the compound. I said I would leave in a couple of minutes after taking in the sight. Soon after that, a woman official (of some rank given the way she talked) on her way out told me the same thing and then jokingly asked me 'why are you admiring my old water and not NeWater' (produced by the new plant across the road).

I told the woman this:

That's the problem with Singaporeans. Simply because someone labelled the water they produced 'NeWater', those suckers think that the water from that new plant is better and 'newer' than what nature provides in those ponds (which is 'old water' to her).

They think that with a pump and some membranes, they can treat (and cleanse) salt and sewage water better than Nature can with evaporation, biological filtration and all. If some pumps and man-made membranes can clean sewage and salt water so well, then the whole world especially advanced countries would have done that long ago instead of waiting for them Singaporeans to do it.

Any one who knows about water treatment knows that no man-made water treatment system can compare to the cleansing power of the ecosystem in a natural water system.

Since she obviously does not know that, I told her to go see if the Germans (who, to me, have one of the greatest scientific and engineering minds) would be impressed with their NeWater and produce their drinking water that way.

And pointing towards the herons around the natural pond, I asked if she can find any heron around the new plant which has a man-made pond with kois. Those birds are sharper than many humans - they know which water is better and which is poisonous. Just by the fact that the herons do not find food in some pond is enough indication of the problem with the water in that pond.

In addition, if she thinks that the 'NeWater' is that great, then she should feed her children with only NeWater from the new plant and see what happens in a few years. I am sure their authorities who had been adding NeWater into the fresh water supply they get from Malaysia know of the risks and had been experimenting with different levels of mixtures and tracking the resulting health impact. It is just that people like her does not know about it because the authorities do not tell them or they are not interested. (see notes below)

I also told her to offer 2 glasses of water - one with water from Malaysia and another with NeWater - to any of her Indian workers around there and see which one they pick.

That's the problem with simple and ignorant people who think they are very 'advanced'. They think technology can solve everything. In this case, free up a big piece of land and yet produce 'better' NeWater.

She kept quiet, told me to enjoy the view and went off.


Additional Background :

During the 1998 financial crisis, the Malaysian government approached Singapore for financial help. Singapore said that they would consider the request if Malaysia was willing to negotiate on a 'package' of issues including that of extending fresh water supplies to Singapore.

Apparently, the existing water agreement was negotiated decades ago between the British rulers of Singapore and the then Sultan of Johor who was represented by another British officer. Under that agreement, Singapore pays 3 sen per 1,000 gallons of raw water and there was no allowance for inflation throughout the tenor of the agreement!

Malaysia says that Singapore was making a lot of profits from the old agreement because Singapore charges local households about S$3.50 per thousand gallons and from supplying foreign ships docking in Singapore while Malaysia got only 3 sen (which was less than 1.5 Singapore cents). Singapore's point is they pay for treatment of the raw water and sends some of those treated water back to Malaysia at a discount.

[I did some research on web and found out from a US university study that in the US, the average cost of water treatment was about USD 1.20 or about SGD 1.80 per thousand gallons. Assuming Singapore's cost is as high as that 'first world' country, their total cost was about SGD 1.82 giving profit of about SGD 1.60. So Malaysia do have a point - I make less than 1.5 cents while you make 1.60]

The cause of that problem was because the British had shortchanged the ignorant Sultan of Johor decades ago by not building in inflation into the agreement they brokered among themselves. As a result, Malaysia wanted to raise future price to 60 sen (less than SGD 25 cent) and adjustable for inflation.

Singapore's position is supplies under the current agreement cannot be changed as it was 'agreed' but they are agreeable to new pricing for any extension but the new price 'must be lower than what it costs Singapore to produce water from other sources' (presumably the latter is newer or better!)

For more than a decade since, all the Singaporeans I spoke to do not know or are bothered about the whole thing which I find disturbing. They have no interest for something as important as their future water supply!