FOCUS | After a month of recce and planning, we were ready to view the River of Life (RoL) project from the perspective of the river.
I had recruited my former intern and outdoor enthusiast Tham Pei Ting to assist me in this project, and with her help, we started to stock up on supplies.
Borrowing the two kayaks Pei Ting’s ex-employer was simple enough. Given the toxicity of the river (no, it hasn’t been upgraded to Level IIB – ‘suitable for body contact and recreational usage’ – yet), we also bought a few wader suits that are normally worn by fly-fishermen.
In addition to Pei Ting, who was the official guide for this expedition, and Studio 25’s Jeffrey Lim, who had guided us on the bicycle routes along the river, we also invited filmmaker Linus Chung to film the expedition.
On Nov 11, a day after Deepavali, we met up for breakfast at Jalan Ipoh before departing from our set-off point at Jalan Kampung Bandar Dalam, located off the Gombak River, on the northern portion of the RoL project.
In addition to the four of us on the kayaks (myself, Pei Ting, Jeff and Linus), we also arranged for a support car that would take pictures and help with the logistics as we travelled down this four kilometre stretch of the Gombak river.
As we were preparing to set off, we met a DBKL contractor whose job was to clear the rubbish at the floating rubbish trap.
He told us he could easily fill a roll on/roll off (roro) container with trash. He would recycle the many plastic bottles collected and would put the rest in a roro container next to the river.
His pay? RM50 per day. He mentioned that he had been doing this for the past eight years.
Taking the plunge
Getting into the river wasn’t that hard. Once in the river, the water is pretty slow moving and not that difficult to negotiate.
But we came to our first mini-obstacle 15 minutes after the start of our journey. It was a slight drop of about 1.5 metres through some small rapids.
We had to get out of our kayaks to survey the drop and find the best line to take. After a couple of attempts, we made it through.
This part of the river with the fall and rapids looks quite nice. If properly developed, it would look like a pretty picturesque part of Kuala Lumpur.
Soon after, we would arrive at the Kampung Puah retention pond.
A lot of resources has been poured into creating this pond and plans are afoot to make this pond into a public recreational area.
The water in the river is pretty shallow here (less than one foot in certain places). They’ve also installed a pretty cool rubber dam which can be inflated to divert the water from Sungai Gombak into the retention pond when the river is in danger of overflowing after heavy rains.
Shortly after Kampung Pauh, we had to get the kayaks out of the river because of a dangerous obstacle that we could not traverse on our kayaks. With the help of my assistants in the support vehicle, we managed to get the kayaks out and then back into the river.
Urban fishermen
The rest of the trip was rather quiet and uneventful. We drifted and enjoyed the quiet stillness of being on the river in the heart of KL.
Our rivers are an extremely underutilised resource in our cities. Many people see the rivers as a big garbage bin for us to dispose our trash. Most others just ignore the river since they don’t impact us in our daily lives in any way, shape or form.
But what if we could start using our rivers as a source of recreation and as a public space?
Wouldn’t we want to take care of our rivers more carefully? After all, the KLCC Park or Lake Gardens are pretty nice places which are well-maintained. Why not our rivers, too?
You would be surprised to learn that many people regularly fish alongside and sometimes in Sungai Gombak.
We encountered four fishermen during our trip down river. Two were individual fishermen using the normal fish and tackle.
One of them mentioned that the number of fish had decreased as a result of the increased pollution upstream. Another told us that he was fishing to reduce his hypertension and high blood pressure.
The other two fishermen were actually using nets to catch their fish. And they were getting a pretty decent haul too.
All of them said that they cook and consume some of the fish that they caught. Whatever they cannot eat, they would sell in the market.
I am sure that with a cleaner river and better fishing regulation policies, we could see more fish and bigger fish come back into the Gombak and Klang rivers.
Full of potential
After approximately three hours, we came to the end of our trip, somewhere near Putra World Trade Centre. It was tiring but fulfilling.
They are many things that one can observe from the unique vantage point of being in the river – the floating rubbish, the obstacles to the kayaks, the rapids, monitor lizards, the usage of the river by the residents, the buildings next to the river, bird sanctuaries in hidden corners around the river bend, discharges from drains and other tributaries, just to name a few.
The RoL project is really full of potential. At the moment, it is unrealised potential.
I hope that the relevant stakeholders can work together to ensure that the public’s interest are prioritised in this project rather than the interest of let’s say, private developers, or toll concession holders.
Join the next expedition
Now that we’ve seen the perspective of the River of Life (RoL) project from the river, what’s next?
Firstly, I will continue to monitor the progress of this project. Issues such as public access, land sales, effectiveness of the river cleaning, relocation of people are a few things which I will look out for.
Secondly, I will try to see if smaller scale RoL type projects can be initiative in my own constituency of Serdang.
One example would be the rehabilitation of a retention pond in the Sri Serdang area. The pond has great potential as a public space but it’s dirty and not well-maintained.
I hope that a community-led project to rehabilitate this pond can be started next year. I’m also exploring the potential of using the river reserve along Sungai Kuyoh as a bicycle or walking path from the Seri Kembangan new village to Serdang Raya.
Thirdly, I’ll be planning for another kayak expedition, this time, from Old Klang Road, just after Mid Valley, all the way to Klang.
It’s a much longer journey so I’ll need more time to do the preparation and recce trips and I’ll probably need a bigger team too.
Remember that the RoL project is a 110km project that covers many parts of the river network in Selangor. Thus far, not much has been done in the Selangor portion of the RoL project. This needs to be rectified.
So, if you’re interested in being part of the next RoL expedition, please let me know!
ONG KIAN MING is DAP MP for Serdang
Related stories
Part 1: The River of Life Expedition
Part 2: Why care about ‘River of Life’? Try RM4.4 bil for size
Part 3: What is it like cycling along KL’s riverbanks?
