The Malaysian Nature Society has not shifted its position regarding the need for a dam over Sungai Selangor despite a meeting yesterday with SOS Selangor, a group comprising various anti-dam NGOs and activists.

The foremost nature conservation organisation, now in existence for 60 years, is of the view that the authorities had made a convincing case for the need of the dam.

"Statistics supplied by the Selangor Water Works Department or Jabatan Bekalan Air (JBA) that water supply was only increasing at a rate of 5 per cent annually while demand was growing at 9-10 per cent was alarming," said MNS executive director Dr. Loh Chi Leong

"MNS could not be convinced to refute the need for a dam within the next three years to meet the demand in Selangor," Lim told malaysiakini today.

However, Loh said MNS did promise to cooperate with SOS Selangor yesterday to re-look at some aspects of the issue like projected water demand as "MNS has access to relevant authorities governing water resource management and collection of data such as what we have been getting for the past 10 years from JBA."

However, a spokesman of SOS Selangor, Dr. Kua Kia Soong, continued to question the rationale for the need to build Sungai Selangor dam forwarded by the state authorities and the award of the concessionaire without an open tender to the Splash consortium.

Kua led a delegation to meet with the Minister of Special Functions, Daim Zainuddin, last Thursday, but they could only meet with officials in the absence of Daim.

They raised the questions of conflict of interest where a Selangor state government firm, Kumpulan Darul Ehsan, is involved in the Splash consortium, and there was no independent judgement when the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) for the project was conducted by a company appointed by Splash itself, SMHB.

Allegations of "unethical practice" against SMHB had been made by one other contract contender, Klang Valley Utilities.

"We also believe there is a conspiracy to suppress information based on feasibility studies done by the geology department which show there is ample groundwater which, together with other sustainable means, can dispense with the need to build the Sungai Selangor dam," Kua said.

Kua reiterated SOS Selangor's position that a question of conflict and ethics was involved when MNS president Dr. Salleh Mohd. Nor is also a member of the board of directors for Land and General of which Wan Azmi Wan Hamzah is chairman.

Wan Azmi holds a 25 per cent stake in the Splash consortium. Kua said that Salleh's quiet acceptance of the dam project could have compromised his MNS office.

Dr. Loh pointed out that Salleh had already explained the "distant association" of himself and Splash and this position had been accepted by the MNS members.

Dr Loh stated that his society, like SOS Selangor, is equally concerned about the impact of the dam with its potential adverse environmental effects on the downstream economies of Kuala Selangor.

In fact, he believed that the MNS study on the impact of the dam on the Kuala Selangor fireflies would give information that would be useful in conservation of the ecosystems. The study was criticised by SOS Selangor as "unethical" since it is done concurrently with the dam's construction.

"There is no ethical question involved when MNS accepted a state grant of some RM1 million to study the impact of the building of Selangor dam on the ecosystems as we are dealing only with the state authorities.

"We are as concerned as other NGOs over the insistence of dam building whenever there are water shortages, and acknowledge that other issues like mismanagement of water resources, environment pollution and degradation as well as water conservation strategies are no less important."