Flood: they said it was stamford canal, but we say it was The Marina Barrage

When you have massive floods on Singapore’s main shopping street, it cannot be blamed on unusually heavy downpour.

There is something not right in our drainage system. Since embarking on many infrastructure projects to transform Singapore, we have become more flood prone especially in areas which were never flood prone before.

This is worrying!

It cannot be that the more we develop our city, the more flood prone we become.

While being no experts compared to the PUB, one cannot help but make certain casual observations:

The Marina Barrage is a dam in Singapore built across the mouth of the bay, between Marina East and Marina South. It was officially opened on 1 November 2008.

1. The Marina Barrage was meant to help alleviate floods. Yet it may have been the cause of floods. In theory, the barrage can be opened to lower the level of water in the canal system. However there will be several hours between opening the barrage at Marina Bay and for the water to flow out from Bukit Timah or Stamford Canals.

Given our climate where we get heavy downpours in 1 – 2 hours, our canals may not be able to cope with the sudden rush of rain water and therefore overflow which resulted in the floods.

2. The flooding at Orchard/Paterson junction is unusual. Prior to construction of ION, the piece of empty land was a big sponge allowing rainwater to flow into the ground.

However, heavy rain falling on the entire complex now cannot flow into the ground directly would naturally pond at the lowest point ie. the Orchard/Paterson junction.

3. Flooding at Balmoral Road which was thought to be eliminated has now re- emerged. Could it be due to the construction of the tunnels of the Downtown line where again rainwater cannot flow directly into the ground and thus flooding the area?

The recurring floods has tarnished our image of having 1st class infrastructure. There needs to some answers to these all too frequent 50-year freak events.

Many parts of Singapore eg. Balmoral, Newton have been largely flood free for the last 15 years until .... 2009 when the Marina Barrage started operating.

If water is to be retained in marina reservoir, then water will flow back into the canal system feeding into the Singapore River ie. Bukit Timah etc. rendering these canals to be much less effective as they are already half full before any heavy downpour.

Furthermore the water table will rise which means that our soil will be less porous to soak in the rainwater during a heavy downpour.

If our precious water reserves were to be released at the barrage before any downpour, it would probably take 10 hours before water level at Bukit Timah canal to be lowered. And what if the downpour was not that heavy?

Why release precious water reserves so that there will not be floods?

Why not put up with floods after all it would be only 1 - 2 hours of incovenience.

Therefore the government cannot tell us the truth and PUB, the scape goat, will continue to give us hundreds of excuses from leaves to sensors to flaw in computer software to new flood alleviation programmes etc etc.

The truth is that IF THE MARINA BARRAGE CONTINUES TO BE OPERATIONAL SINGAPORE WILL ENTER INTO A NEW ERA OF BEING FLOOD PRONE IN MANY AREAS.