Friday, January 9, 2009

water is precious; water is costly




my blogger friend chun see mentioned that these days there are not many signs with a threat of a fine on them. most signs do not carry the threat of a fine. he argued that a more appropriate label for singapore should be 'sign city' instead of 'fine city'.

from the look of things, there may soon be a new sign with a threat of a fine on it. i can imagine seeing this on a signboard, next to the canal, with this warning message: " it is an offence, punishable by a fine of $5000, to collect or draw water by mechanical, manual or any other means (like using an elephant to do it) from any canal, river, stream, longkang or pond in singapore".

i wonder what the people collecting the water from the canal are going to do with the water. bathing? washing? cleaning? watering plants?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

watering plants, I guess

yg said...

fr, these people are not nparks contractors. anyway, nparks have their permanent source of water supply. there's one near my place - the pang sua stormwater reservoir. there's a picture of it here

Lam Chun See said...

Judging from their equipment, I think they probably have govt permission or are subcontracted by govt. Nowadays, govt depts outsource everything.

Victor said...

A few years ago when I encountered a connection problem with my Singtel broadband, I noticed that the technicians who came to my house to investigate the problem already didn't wear any uniform. (Previously, Singtel techicians used to wear grey uniform, I think.)

So yes, those people you saw were probably workers contracted by the government, i.e. National Parks, to water roadside plants. They have to use "non-potable" water for this purpose so as not to waste precious drinking water.

Anonymous said...

Here’s one possibility. The water from the canal is brackish at high tide. These people siphoned the brackish water to replenish the water in their fishing ponds. Fishing pond owners now use brackish water to keep their salt water fish alive in their ponds. Gone were the days where you fish for fresh water fish like ‘grassy’, ‘song’, or ‘carps’ in a fresh water fishing pond.

yg said...

mr nah, this canal is not affected by the tides. the water comes from the drains and streams in the area.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps collecting for Newater?

yg said...

doris, newater, no need to collect. if collect like that, even when the cows come home, still not enough water for one block of flats.
i suspect these people are collecting water to use at either worksites or dormitories.