REHABILITATION OF PETALING JAYA LAKES- THE FERMENTATION TECHNOLOGY WAY

PICTURE TAKEN FROM ALLMALAYSIA INFO
INTRODUCTION
I just cannot help laughing at the futility of efforts in trying to rehabilitate the two recreational lakes serving the Petaling Jaya community. Historically, these lakes were originally formed during its hey days of tin mining activities. There were numerous tin mining lakes then in and around Petaling Jaya stretching from Sungai Besi to Sungai Way. The water quality of the lakes then was excellent. You can sense its cleanliness by just observing visually the clarity of its water

FUNCTION OF THE LAKES
These lakes which provided so much joy and happiness to residents and visitors alike has since then deteriorate in quality due to pollution due to rapid urbanization and city development.

There were concerns generated about the polluted status of the lahes which behaves more as wastewater receptacle rather than recreation lakes. Some of the news went even as far as declaring the lakes as being toxic and not capable of supporting healthy life forms such as fishes.

BASIC STUDIES
There were some basic scientific studies done on the lakes, mostly as field course or final year research projects. In most cases these studies are not comprehensive enough and with no clear objectives of trying to solve the problem of the lakes. Most of these studies are just simple wastewater characteristic studies involving few basic parameters or just taxonomic studies trying to identify the names of the algae or bacteria found in the lakes. In all these studies admittedly are very qualitative or semi quantitative to have significant input in solving the problems at hand

DATA AND SAMPLINGS
To make things worst some of these studies are more of “one off| studies without proper plan and research being done before the studies are taken. While it is true even sloppy work will still generate data, but how relevant or dependable are these data? Can these data be relied upon?

The data obtained and its validity or accuracy are determined by many factors. After all even a wrong sample can still yield data!!!
The validity of the data depends a lot on the sample and how sampling activities are carried out. At best the data obtained is just a snapshot in space and time and may be only valid for the sample in question. We cannot extrapolate on the state of the lakes based on this few poorly executed samples

Despite having the most advance sophisticated analytical instruments, the results would not be meaningful if sampling errors are done upstream

That is why I find ot so hilarious when there are water characteristic reports of the lake showed parameters such as dissolved oxygen achieving 9 mg/litre This is too good to be true!. Yet common sense and visual observations showed the lake to be much polluted with bubbling methane gas, foul smelling H2S and dead fishes floating.

If half hearted efforts are being made, we might as well don’t carry out any wastewater analyses. At least you save time, effort and money. To add insult to injury there are people who try to make far reaching conclusions and assumptions based on these flawed data.

Since scientific data such as the water characteristics are very important, proper sampling studies must be carried out. I often wonder if such data can withstand the challenge of environmental litigation in court?


FUTILE EFFORTS IN REHABILITATION
Just go to any doctor if you got medical problems. The doctor would not be able to find the proper cure unless he has done comprehensive clinical examinations on the patient. The same situation applies to the lake rehabilitation efforts. You cannot cure a sick lake by not finding the real cause of the problem.

Futile efforts were made to rehabilitate the lakes and huge sum of taxpayers money invested into the projects. However, from observations all those rehabilitation projects don’t seem to work.

Why do you ask that this topic be discussed in this fermentation technology blog? Well, the solution to this polluted lake could be solved if we try to understand the problem from the application and understanding of fermentation technology. After all, the lake is in itself a huge bioreactor or fermentor. Maybe there are lessons to be learnt from fermentation technology that will help understand the problem and how to solve it

THE LAKE AS A FERMENTOR
Maybe its due to my training or obsession with fermentation technology, but I seem to see almost everything in terms of the fermentor. The lake is one good example of a fermentor! So if the lake is polluted we can conclude it is one fermentation process that has failed or succinctly it is the bioreactor or fermentor operating regimes that failed. The question is which parameter is it?



Type rest of the post here.