Lawmakers urge gov’t to act on flooding, illegal wastewater dumping

Several lawmakers used the period before the agenda yesterday at the Legislative Assembly to call on the government to find real solutions to prevent flooding in Macau.
The impetus was the heavy rainstorm earlier this month which caused flooding in several areas of the city.
Several lawmakers cited information from the Municipal Affairs Bureau and others that obstruction of the sewage system, namely the rainwater piping system, is one of the factors that contributes to the difficulties in draining rainwater, causing flooding.
These blockages of the drainage system are attributed to the illegal dumping of oil and other substances into the system, with lawmakers pointing the finger at food and beverage establishments as well as other small businesses, and adding that this problem has been growing exponentially in the last couple of years.
Lawmakers Zheng Anting, Mak Soi Kun, and Agnes Lam called on the government to find an effective solution for the flooding, starting by reinforcing the inspection and supervision of the rainwater drainage system.
Mak urged the government to urgently inspect the sewage system of food and beverage establishments before a severe typhoon hits Macau, and compare them to the blueprints held by the Land, Public Works, and Transport Bureau to verify whether there have been any changes or illegal discharge of wastewater into the system.
Mak additionally suggested that the authorities make use of fluorescent liquid to identify the source of the oily wastewater found in the rainwater drainage system.
Lam added, “If the IAM knows who the wrongdoers are that [are dumping wastewater into the rainwater system] repeatedly, [we should] proceed swiftly with a revision of the General Regulations Governing Public Places, aiming to, as happens in other countries and regions, severely punish wrongdoers,” adding that the Municipal Affairs Buraau should “reconsider the need to reinforce [their] work to promote awareness, [and] to create a mechanism for complaints about the dumping of pollutant wastewater so that all citizens can help to monitor this matter.”
A similar position was expressed by Zheng, who recalled that the government has previously announced that it would use a video surveillance system inside the sewers to monitor the situation but there have not been any developments on this front.
Zheng added that the government must use the General Regulations Governing Public Places to tackle the problem “right from the source,” calling for the strengthening of supervision over the drainage system as well as over flooding blackspots across the city.

Black Rainstorm proposed to be treated like typhoon
Leong Sun Iok urged the government to improve the alert mechanism for disaster prevention, saying there are some problems with the disaster alerts. “The latest intense rainfall occurred during the early hours of the day and many people were not aware of the situation as they were sleeping. I suggest that the black signal of intense rainfall be included in the civil protection system, [so authorities] can allocate more resources [in responding to the flooding] as well as being able to use the sound alert system installed in the low-lying areas of the city, preventing unnecessary losses,” he said.