Introduction

Water Treatment.

Water treatment is the process of improving the quality of raw water to make it more
acceptable for a specific end-use whether it be drinking, industrial water supply, water
recreation, irrigation and many more other uses. This process also removes any
contaminants and unwanted components from the water, thus is very crucial for the
health, safety and benefits for human consumption and use.

Batu Kitang Treatment Plant Building

Location of the Sungai Sarawak Kiri river

Batu Kitang Treatment Plant is located near the bank of Sungai Sarawak Kiri (40 miles
from the sea). The source of raw water for this water treatment plant is the Sungai
Sarawak Kiri river. Here it goes through the treatment process of coagulation,
flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, disinfection and pH adjustment. The raw water
from Sungai Sarawak Kiri is slightly turbid and has a pH value of around 6.9. The
treatment plant has grown it raw water intake from 3MgD (Millions of Gallons per Day)
to 100MLD (Millions of Liters per Day) .

What is interesting about the Batu Kitang Treatment Plant is that they have instituted a
water quality surveillance program to ensure the water that they have produced is
consistently complying with the National Drinking Water Quality Standards.

Kuching Water Board’s Water Quality Assurance Laboratory

This program collects water samples every 3 months from different areas and are sent
to the labs to be analyzed. Some of the locations include Polytechnic, Kampung
Semaba, Tabuan Jaya, Bintawa and Petra Jaya. The analysis includes physico-
chemical and bacteriological examination. This treatment plant today accounts for 98%
of Kuching City’s water production.
Process

First, the raw water is pumped from the Sungai Sarawak river to the treatment plant.
The raw water will undergo screening process where the large sized impurities along
with the finer impurities are filtered out so they won’t enter the pumping system. Before
reaching the pumping point, the water also undergoes grit removal.Then comes the
aeration process. This process is done to increase dissolved oxygen content in the
water, enhance freshness of water, reduce bad odor of water and to oxidize soluble iron
and manganese that are in the water. The water will then undergo the diffusion process.
Chemicals are added into the water to generate a thickening agent which will then trap
micro impurities in the water which will then help with the flocculation and coagulation
process. After the coagulation process, the water will then undergo sedimentation.
Here, suspended solid in the water is removed. The solid flocculants settle through
gravity, forming sludge. This sludge is removed from time to time. The water is then
filtered by passing the water through porous medium that traps suspended sediments.
The Batu Kitang Treatment Plant uses the rapid sand filter method where gravity is
used to pass the water through beds of granular media.

Filtration process

The next process is the fluoridation where fluoride is added to the water. This is done to
prevent dental carries. Then come sterilization and disinfection which is the process of
removing bacteria by adding chloramines (chlorine and ammonia).

Disinfection area

Fluoridation room

Finally, the water undergoes conditioning where the adjustment of pH is done. This part
of the treatment process is done to prevent the water from being too acidic which may
trigger corrosion in distribution pipes and may not be suitable for human use. To ensure
the water produced by KWB is consistently complying with the National Drinking Water
Quality Standards a system of stringent water quality surveillance programs has been
instituted. This program collects water samples every 3 months from different areas and
are sent to the labs to be analyzed.
REFERENCES

1. Official Website Of Kuching Water Board. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.kwb.gov.my/page-0-122-58-Batu-Kitang-Water-Works.html
2. Quality Control. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.kwb.gov.my/page-0-125-74-
Quality-Control.html
3. Bt Kitang Building [digital photo]. Retrieved from http://www.kwb.gov.my/page-0-
122-58-Batu-Kitang-Water-Works.html
4. QC8 [digital photo]. Retrieved from https://www.kwb.gov.my/page-0-125-74-
Quality-Control.html
5. Google (n.d.). [Google Maps of Sungai Sarawak Kiri Location]. Retrieved 24 April
2019, from
https://www.google.com/search?q=sungai+sarawak+kiri&oq=sung&aqs=chrome.
0.69i59j69i57j69i60l2j69i65j69i60.5131j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#