Major Flaws Found In Dash’s Environmental Report

(The Sun Daily) – The Say No To Dash (SNTD) group has found several flaws in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for the Damansara-Shah Alam Highway (DASH).

Revealing this to the media, SNTD spokesperson Michelle Wong said that the assessment report or the project consultant have failed to recognise Mutiara Damansara and Damansara Perdana are two separate and distinct residential area.

“Because of that, both housing areas were mentioned interchangeably in the EIA report as the findings for Mutiara Damansara were also implied to apply to Damansara Perdana.

“This then lead to Damansara Perdana not being exhaustively included in the assessment; especially in critical points such as the current environment, potential impact and mitigation,” she added during a press conference after a meeting with the Selangor Mentri Besar Mohamad Azmin Ali here today.

Wong pointed out that there is indeed a need for a study on Air Quality Impact Analysis to be conducted at both Mutiara Damansara and Damansara Perdana because international studies have concluded that vehicle emissions will have severe impact on children’s health such as breathing difficulties and asthma.

Wong then revealed that not a single Damansara Perdana resident is included in the study zone or zone of impact survey done by Prolintas.

“Not only that the sample size listed in the report, 165, did not take into consideration the 24,000 residents in the Damansara Perdana, the figure alone is not sufficient to represent the total number of people affected by the highway,” she said, while adding that Damansara Perdana was not mentioned at the Erosion and Sediment Control Plan (ESCP) report.

Due to all this flaws found, she reiterated that the proposed highway projects must not come into the residential areas, specifically, that of Damansara Perdana to which the group have gotten Bukit Lanjan assemblymen Elizabeth Wong into committing to it.

However, Wong also said that if the state government wish to proceed with the highway approval then it is necessary that the highway to be realigned away from the residential areas for the sake of public safety, health and environment.

Asked on what response or assurance did Azmin gave to them, Wong said that Azmin will be meeting with representatives from Prolintas and the Malaysian Highway Authority (MHA) in due time and ask Prolintas to conduct a new EIA report considering that the latest EIA report was outdated as it was done in September 2012 and approved in Nov 2012.

DASH is an elevated highway costing RM4 billion and among the proposed route for it are Shah Alam’s Puncak Perdana U10, Alam Suria, Denai Alam, Kampung Melayu Subang, Rubber Research Institute Malaysia, Kota Damansara, Mutiara Damansara and Damansara Perdana before linking to Sprint and Lebuhraya Damansara Perdana.