The proposed Kuala Lumpur Outer Ring Road or ‘Kloor’ running through an ecologically sensitive part of the gazetted Selangor State Park is disturbing news indeed.  A recce which I did of the area confirms the environmental dangers of this project.

To have the ‘Kloor pass through the Klang Gates Quartz Ridge… where a gap separates the massif into two’ will be the height of folly and ecological insensitivity. The gap, once cut through, will mean slopes on both sides will have to be bulldozed apart resulting in almost inevitable rock-falls and landslides. Surely we should not do that to our natural marvel, the world’s longest quartz ridge.

In fact, the state government had slated an application for the ridge to be declared a Unesco World Heritage site. Such an application will be torpedoed by Unesco if a highway were to cut across it.

The ridge is most memorable to many of us who have climbed and walked along this beautiful natural wonder. It was a breathtaking experience for us a few years ago as we paused now and then to drink in the splendour of the ridge as it fell away on both sides of us to reveal a panoramic spread of rolling hills and distant mountains.

The ridge is reminiscent of the Crocker Range in Sabah which we drove past on our way to the Kinabalu National Park. Both of these are our God-given natural heritage. Yet we are planning to tear apart one of them with a highway running through it.

My recce included the fringes of the Hulu Gombak and Ampang Forest Reserves. As a result, I can appreciate why the residents in Taman Melawati and Taman TAR are so worried of the health-harming prospects of Kloor running through or near their abodes.

Worse, Taman Melawati, sitting below the Klang Gates Dam, may be inundated by a tsunami- scale deluge leading to immense loss of lives or injuries if this 60-year old iconic dam breaks under the vibration stress of piling and other road works for Kloor.

I emphatically feel that the federal government should seriously consider scrapping the Kloor project going through the ecologically sensitive area with an important water catchment and storage dam, a highly vulnerable community nearby and across a God-given geological wonder.

Let us instead funnel the millions or billions of ringgit earmarked for Kloor into more cogent need-answering projects like an integrated system of public transport, the lack of which is the main cause of the clogged up traffic in the Klang Valley today.