For residents of Kampung Broga, Semenyih the moment of truth draws near as the government will have to reveal the status of a controversial incinerator project next month.

On behalf of the residents, Alice Lee filed a suit in 2003 against the government demanding full disclosure of the project - reportedly costing RM1.5 billion and one of the biggest of its kind in the region.

According to Lee's counsel, Jayapalan Mahesan, during the last hearing in the Shah Alam High Court, the deputy public prosecutor had informed Justice Suriadi Halim Omar that the government had scrapped the project and wanted the case thrown out.

Jeyapalan said the Attorney-General's Chambers now had to prove to the court with official documents that the project had indeed been called off.

The case is slated for mention in May although an exact date will only be known by the end of this month.

'Black and white'

Last September, Japan's Ebara Corp claimed that the deal with the Malaysian government over the project was off, but government officials have been coy on the matter.

As such, Lee said her court case must be pursued to in order to get an official status on the matter. "We need to see it in black and white," she added.

While the government's soil tests and land buying efforts in Broga have ceased for about a year, Lee said residents were still worried about renewed interest by the government in incinerator technologies.

Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak led a high-level delegation to Japan early last month which among other matters, included a visit to an incineration plant.

Najib, who heads the cabinet committee on waste management, said after the visit that the use of incinerators or cluster incineration plants 'could not be avoided'.

Waste management woes

The intended 1,500-tonne thermal solid waste treatment plant in Broga was meant to use the latest, but unproven, zero emission technology, designed and built by Ebara.

It is capable of processing some 1,000-tonne of municipal waste daily but also produces 400-tonnes of toxic slag daily.

In numerous memorandums to the government, residents pointed out that the large-scale incinerator would reduce property prices and have negative economic effects on Broga and Semenyih.

They were also concerned for their health and well-being, citing dioxin and mercury emissions, among other known contaminants, from incinerators as supported by research findings in Europe and Japan.