Kranji water plant redevelopment: Impact on Rail Corridor, Muslim cemetery to be studied
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A heritage study will also be conducted at a section of the former KTM railway, located within the Rail Corridor and the Muslim Cemetery.
ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM
SINGAPORE - The Kranji Water Reclamation Plant (WRP) will be redeveloped by 2034, and will likely be located alongside the National Environment Agency’s (NEA) waste management facility in an expanded 26ha site to the north of the existing plant.
As the identified site includes a segment of the former Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) railway alignment, a 10ha plot of vegetated land, and a cemetery at the former Kampong Wak Selat, the authorities are conducting studies on potential environmental and other impacts.
This includes looking at potential ecological corridors between the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, northern Kranji coast, and the Mandai Mangrove and Mudflat via the former KTM railway and Sungei Pang Sua.
A heritage study will also be conducted at a section of the former KTM railway – located near the Rail Corridor and the Muslim Cemetery – that could be affected.
This study will include the history of the former kampung in the vicinity where relevant, notable individuals whose tombstones are found in the cemetery, as well as the number of graves, national water agency PUB said in a tender document released on Friday.
An archaeological survey will also be required if unusual artefacts are found.
The tender noted that the possible exhumation of graves might be required, and arrangements include sending the exhumed remains to Choa Chu Kang Cemetery for reburial.
To determine the impact of the plant’s redevelopment on other affected or potentially affected areas such as the Mandai Mangrove and Mudflat and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, which are biodiversity-rich, a separate environmental impact assessment will also be done.
Among other requirements, plants and animals with conservation status will need to be identified, and the consultant would also need to take into consideration the possible displacement of wildlife due to habitat loss, as well as the potential loss of ecological and wildlife connectivity.
Mitigation measures would have to be proposed and an Environmental Monitoring and Management Plan developed.
The Nature Society (Singapore), or NSS, said on Friday that the expansion of the reclamation plant could disrupt an ecological corridor facilitating the movement of wildlife between one of the few remaining mangroves in Singapore and habitats along the Rail Corridor in the south.
In a statement, PUB and the Urban Redevelopment Authority said that the realignment of the Rail Corridor facilitated plans to make the Kranji node a northern gateway into the Rail Corridor by improving public accessibility and creating a community node at the location.
It also freed up a sizeable parcel of land around the former KTM railway to be optimally planned and redeveloped to meet future needs.
Agencies will strengthen the ecological connectivity of the realigned Rail Corridor with enhanced planting, and study measures such as landscaping strategies that will integrate the Rail Corridor with the green provisions and landscapes of future developments to make the Rail Corridor functionally wider where possible, said the authorities.
The National Parks Board is also studying ways to enhance the ecological connectivity along Sungei Pang Sua and along Sungei Mandai to the Mandai Mangrove and Mudflat, they said.
PUB said that the existing Kranji WRP and the Kranji Newater Factory, currently located to the north of Kranji MRT, are needed to meet used water and Newater needs in north-east Singapore.
It will be redeveloped as part of a “three-node system” together with the Changi and Tuas WRPs, to enhance the resilience of used water systems in Singapore.
The Kranji WRP has a used treatment water capacity of 33 million gallons per day (mgd), and the Kranji Newater Factory has a production capacity of 22mgd, which is enough water to fill about 36 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Phase 1 of the new Kranji WRP will have a capacity of 120mgd, which will be further expanded up to 160mgd according to used water needs.
A new 50mgd Kranji Newater Factory will replace the existing one.
The Kranji Water Reclamation Plant will be redeveloped by 2034, and will be located alongside the NEA’s waste management facility.
PHOTO: PUB
The new plant will possibly be co-located with NEA’s waste management facility to harness synergies from long-term operations.
NEA will likely construct the facility in phases, with some facilities such as a sludge incineration facility and a food waste treatment facility constructed in tandem with Phase 1 of Kranji’s new WRP.
NSS said that the new PUB site will disrupt a 50m-wide wildlife corridor connecting the Sungei Mandai mangroves to other habitats along the Rail Corridor for more than 100 years.
It said: “This connection will now be broken by the construction of the new plant.
“The Nature Society has called for the recently opened park connector joining the Rail Corridor to the Sungei Mandai canal to be further enhanced to re-establish wildlife connectivity lost to the proposed construction.”
