TAIPING: The company undertaking the proposed RM60mil cable car system to Bukit Larut does not have to submit an Environmental Impact Assessment report.
Department of Environment Taiping branch chief Nasir Abdul Rahman said the report was only required if the project involved massive construction activities.
“Since the project in Bukit Larut only involved the construction of towers which utilises small plots of land, the project is not subjected to an EIA requirement,” he said.
Nasir said the company had de- liberated on the cable car pro- ject with the Bukit Larut development committee recently and it was agreed that no EIA report was needed as it was only a recreation project.
He said an EIA report was a must for projects like housing involving more than 50ha.
However in Perak, he added, the requirement had been tightened to over 20ha.
Although the project has not been approved by the state exco, the company and its representatives briefed Pokok Assam state assemblyman Datuk Ho Cheng Wang and the lo- cal media yesterday on the system which had been successfully implemented in Langkawi.
“Original vegetation on the hill will be left untouched and the construction of each tower will only utilise a small plot of about 10m by 10m,” Alan Tan, the consultant of the project said.
Tan said he was aware that the foothill of Bukit Larut had been gazetted as a water catchment area.
“Our cable car project in Langkawi was also built in a water catchment area and the environment there is not polluted,” he said.
Tan said more than a dozen towers would be built to support the 4.9km-long cables to bring gondolas carrying passengers up and down the Bukit Larut.
The base station would be built at a vacant plot near the Casuarina Inn and the Taiping New Club at the Lake Garden here. The tower station would be built about 1,009m up on the hill.
However, Ho cautioned the company to make the necessary adjustments for the base station as the proposed site would often be flooded during the rainy season.
“We don’t want the town to be flooded once the base station is completed,” he said.
Earlier Tan told the briefing that the existing jeep service which visitors depended on to go up the hill could only accommodate about 200 visitors daily whereas the cable car system would be able to bring about 1,000 visitors per day.
“Construction materials will be transported to the tower sites using helicopters so as to protect the hill’s natural vegetation,” he said.
Ho, who is also state Infrastructure and Public Utility Committee chairman, asked for public feedback before the company kicked off the project.
posted by Nor hidayah Mohd(sep060075)
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