Tuesday, May 19, 2009

spring water for washing motor vehicles





when i lived at hillview housing and development board (hdb) housing estate - now demolished - for a short while in the early 80s, i remember seeing across cars parked by the roadside, usually in the mornings or evenings, near the end of hillview avenue before it joined the former jurong road.





nothing unusual about cars parked by the side of the road except that the owners were seen collecting water from some source nearby, in the drain, to wash their vehicles. the water was clean and the supply of it was continuous. i did not have a car then, so i did not avail myself to this free car-wash.





with the developments and changes in the area, i thought that the flow of water would have been diverted or blocked completely.

today, i decided to deviate from my usual working route at bukit batok nature park. i decided to walk to the heavy vehicle car-park located along bukit batok avenue 2 east, which is actually a continuation of hillview avenue. i remember studying an old map of the area which showed the car-park as part of an old quarry.

it was a discovery walk for me. i discovered that there is still a constant supply of clean water for washing cars and buses from certain points by the sides of the drain around the heavy vehicle car-park.


i spoke to one man who was washing his toyota altis at the car-park and he told me that there is a non-stop supply of clean water from the outlets. day and night, water is gushing out from the ground.


the heavy vehicle car-park is located just before bukit batok nature park along bukit batok east avenue 2.

since i was nearby, i was tempted to wash my car there but changed my mind. after all, it costs 25 cents to wash it myself at my hdb car-park.

my car is not washed on a regular basis. i do not pay the man to wash my car in the car-park because i feel i would be abetting him in stealing water from the hdb. do you find out where he gets his water to wash your car? no, not from the 25-cent source. he has this device which he uses (illegally) to turn on the taps which the hdb cleaners are authorised to use.

3 comments:

Joe said...

Many years ago, I read about people striking lottery after washing their cars with water from a spring at Bukit Batok. Could it be the same source?

SG Green Fingers Journey said...

I'm not sure whether the water is still there... but near my area Bukit Gombak area, there is a drain which has constant flow of water from the hilltop (MINDEF). I suspect there is a catchment basin where the rain water was collected. I will be posting on my blog on this. Come and visit my blog at http://sgmylifeisgood.blogspot.sg

Unknown said...

There is no such thing as spring water in Singapore whereby is not a mountainous island.

I believe a broken water underground pipeline is at the higher area around the vicinity that throw out continuous stream of water into the drain.
Someone responsible have to perform the ultrasound detection for underground leakaged spots to stop the non-stop wastage of potable water (rain or shine).