Pertallika 1:1 (:I), :17:1 - :lHO (1990)

Sewage Pollution in the Coastal Watersoff Port Dickson, Straits of Malacca

A.T. LAW and AZAHAR OTHMANFarulty ofFisheries and Marine Scienre

Universiti Pertanian Malaysia43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor DaTUl Ehsan, Malaysia

Key words: fecal coliform bacteria, coastal waters, Port Dickson, Malaysia.

ABSTRAK

Kajian tpntang taburan bakteria Iwliforln najis dalarn air pantai dan air persisiran pantai Port Dirkson telahdijalankan an/am bulan Ogos 1987 dan Ogos 1989. Sungguhpun ketinggian bakteria koliform najis telahdikpsan dalmn airpantai, tetajJi bilangannya sangat rendah dalam endajJan dan airpersisiran yangjauhnya dianima 0.5 kill hingga 5 km daripada pantai. Kajian ini rnenunjul{kan bahawa airjJersisiran Port Dickson sesuaiun/uk tt/juan rpk,-msi dan akuakultur.

ABSTRACT

The distribution offeral rolifonn barteria in the near-shore waters and coastal waters oJ!Port Dickson was studiedbe/wpm Augusl 1987 and August 1989. Although a signifirantly high level offecal coliform bacteria was foundin the /1NIHhorp walers, very low levels were deterted in the sediments and in roastal waters between 0.5 km and 5kIn awayfrom the roast. The resuUs indirate that the coastal waters oJ!Port Dickson are suitablefor recreational andaquarulture usps.

INTRODUCTION

Most of the Malaysian population is situated withina few tens ofkilometers from the coast. Impropermanagement of the coastal area developmentand inadequate sewage treatment systems havecreated problems of sewage contamination inmost of the Malaysian rivers (Consumer'sAssociation of Penang1978; Law 1980) and insome of the coastal waters (Owens 1978; Law andAzahar 1985; Law 1986; Mendia 1983). TheDepartment ofEnvironment (DOE) monitoringfecal coliform levels in Malaysian coastal waters,has indicated that between 35-65% ofthe samplescontained counts higher than 500 MPN/I00 ml(Mendia 1983; Tong and Law 1988) This hasmotivated the government to have more stringentcontrols for sewage discharge into the aquaticenvironment.

Port Dickson is one of the well knownrecreational beaches in Malaysia. A previousstudy on the fecal coliform distribution along

the beaches of Port Dickson revealed that thenear shore waters were contaminated by sewageeffluent (Law and Azahar 1985). It was foundthat more than 35% of the samples containedfecal coliform counts higher than 200 MPN/100 ml, which exceeded the 100 MPN/I00 mllevel recommended for recreational waters(Grimes 1980). Since the proper measurementshave been taken by the authority to minimizethe level of sewage pollution and to protectbeaches for public use. The present study wasundertaken to continue monitoring thedistribution of fecal coliform bacteria along thebeaches as well as the coastal waters andsediment off Port Dickson.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Sampling Stations

Sixteen sampling stations in three transectswere established for this study and theirlocations are shown in Fig. 1. The sampling

CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

Provided by Universiti Putra Malaysia Institutional Repository

AT. LAW AND AZAHAR OTHi'vIAN

Fig. 1: Map showing f/IP sampling statio liS

Fecal Colifonn EnumerationWater The five-tube most probable numbermethod (MPN) as described in WHO (1977a)with an incubation temperature of 44.0 C was

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

10&10 (HPN/lOOml)

100

The fecal coliform counts in samples takenfrom the near-shore waters, coastal waters andcoastal sediment off Port Dickson are shown inTable 1. The cumulative frequency plot of fecalcoliform bacteria in the near-shore waters (fromstations Al to A6) is presented in Fig. 2, whichindicates that 52% of water samples contained

fecal coliform counts higher than 200 MP /100 m!. The geometric mean of fecal colifromcounts at stations AI, A2, A3, A4, A5 and A6were 579.4 MPN/100 ml, 3.7 x 10" MPN/100 ml,372.6 MPN/100 ml, 19.3 MPN/IOO ml, 526.4MP 1/100 ml and 103.8 MP /100 ml,respectively. Consistently high fecal coliformcounts were detected at station A2, rangingfrom 2 x 104 MPN/100 ml to 2 x lOG MPN/I00

Sediment 109 of sample wre resuspended in 100mI sterile water saline water (0.1 %) and shakenvigorously. MPN method of WHO (1977a) wasused to estimate the fecal coliform conten t in themixture.

employed for the determination of fecalcoliform concentrations in water. Undilutedwater samples were used for the analysis exceptfor station A2 which was diluted with 0.1 %sterile saline water to 10,000 times beforeenumeration. Inoculation of water samples wereperformed at the field within six hours aftersampling.

Fig. 2: Clt1nulative/ref/uen!)' ofthe.frrat roliforln distlibutioll in the/leaH/lOre water oJ!Port Dirkson /rom /986 to 1989

4km

82o

03 C3o 0

101'43'E

02'26'E

O:i'30'E

Collection ofSamplesWater samples were taken with sterile 500 c.c.glass reagent bottles at 1 m depth below thesurface of the sea water. The samples were keptcoolon board with ice. The bottom sedimentwas taken 'with a Smith-McIntyre grab. Only thesurface sediment (- 3 cm) was taken forenumeration of fecal coliform. The surfacesediment samples were kept cool with ice until

analysis.

stations covered the entire coast of Port Dicksonand extended 5 km towards the sea. StationsAI, A2, A3, A4, A5 and A6 were the near-shorestations which were located at about 3 to 5 maway from shoreline at a depth of about 1 m.For each transect, stations were set at 1 km, 3km and 5 km towards the sea except for stationJ which was located at about 0.5 km from thePort Dickson harbour. The stations were visisted8 times between August, 1987 and August, 1989.

376 PERTANlKA VOL. 13,1 0.31990

SEWACE POl.l.UTION Ii\: THE COASTAl. WATERS OFF PORT DICKSOJ\:

TABLElFecal coliform bactel'ia distribution in the coastal water

off Pon Dickson (MP /100 ml)

Date24.8.87

Station28.12.87 28.3.88 20.6.88 8.1.89 253.89 21.5.89 22.8.89

AlA2A~

A4A5A6

BlB2B~

.J

ClC2C~

DlD2D3

1600 200110,000 2,000,000 20,000

1600 21 330~~

350 900 2~0

49 17

11 <2 25 <2 .5

<2 <2 2

-j: 14 < 2

<2 8 <2<2 11 <2<2 <2 <2

<2 <2<2 <2<2 <2

160020,000

70

540240

5<22

<28

2<2<2

550 49 31 2620,000 70,000 700,000 40,000

920 1] <2 2725 17 <2

1600 49 2 540350 ~3 5 33

<2 <2 <2 22 <2 <2 <2

<2 <2 <2 <2

<2 7 <2 <2

<2 <2 <2 <2<2 <2 <2 <2<2 <2 <2 <2

<2 <2 <2 <2<2 <2 < 2 <2<2 <2 <2 <2

* = ot determined.

m!. Station A2 was situated at the Pon Dicksonharbour which received waster water dischargedfrom the town. It was found to carry the highestsewage pollution in the near-shore waters ofPort Dickson. Significantly high fecal coliformcounts were also detected in the vicinity of thetown area, at stations Al and A3, which werelocated at about 4 km north and south of thetown. At station AS, the fecal coliform countsranged between 2 MPN/I00 ml and 1,600MPN/I00 m!. This station was situated in anarea where most of the hotels andcondominiums were located in Port Dickson.The acceptable coliform levels for bathing waterswere found at stations A4 and A6 where theirmean levels were below 200 MP 1/100 m!. Thelevels of fecal coliform along the near-shorewaters of Port Dickson, as obtained from thepresent study were similar to that reported in1984 by Law and Azahar (1985). Efforts toclean up the Port Dickson coastal areas fromsewage pollution have shown no significant

improvement. It is therefore necessary that morestringent standards be enforced for thetreatment and discharge of sewage effluentsinto the near-shore waters of Port Dickson.

Although a significant level offecal coliformbacteria was detected in the near-shore waters ofPort Dickson, very low levels were found in thecoastal waters between 0.5 km and 5 km awayfrom the coast (Table 1). More than 75% of thewater samples taken from the coastal waterscontained fecal coliform bacteria below detectionlevel. The mean fecal coliform count in the coastalwaters was 3 MPN/IOO ml and the range wasbetween <2 and 17 MPN/I00 ml.

The distribution offecal coliform bacteria inwaters along the sampling stations of the transect,extending outwards from the harbour area, is

presented in Fig. 3. It indicates that between 104

and 106 MP /100 ml fecal coliform bacteria weredetected in the near-shore waters at station A2.However, the level dropped to 10 MP T/I00 ml at

PERTANlKA VOL. 13, NO.3 1990 377

AT. [AW AND AZAHAROTHMAN

0.5 km away from the coast, and was undetectablebetween 1 km and 5 km away from the coast. Therapid reduction of fecal coliform bacteria in thewaters away from the shore is interesting. This isprobably due to great degree of dilution orflushing effect in the offshore waters.

Fecal coliform content in the sediment also

REFERENCES

CONSUMER'S ASSOCIATION OF PENANG. 1978.The Malaysian Environment in Crisis. Penang:The Consumer's Association of Penang, 129 p.

DOE-UM. 1986. Water Quality Criteria and Standards

TABLE 2Fecal coliform bacteria distribution in the sediment

off Port Dickson (MPN/g wet sediment)

serves as an indicator ofpollution ofthe overlyingwaters (Law 1986). Very low fecal coliform countswere recorded in the coastal sediment off PortDickson. The mean value was 3.7 MP /g wetsediment sample with a range of<0.2 to 17 MPN/g wet sediment. The level offecal coliform bacteriain more than 89% of the sediment samples wereundetectable. Low fecal coliform content in thesediment supports and reflects the level of lowsewage pollution in the coastal waters off PortDickson (Table 2) .

DOE-UM (1986) recommend a log meanMPN of200 fecal coliforms/100 ml as an interimstandard for Malaysian recreational waters. WHO(1975, 1977b) suggests that a highly satisfactorybathing water should show fecal coliform countsconsistantly less than 100 per 100 ml, and, forshellfish harvesting waters, the counts should notexceed 14 MPN/100 ml. The results of this studyindicate that although the near-shore waters ofPort Dickson carry some degree of sewagepollution, the sewage contamination in the coastal

Distance (km) away from shoreline waters was very low and can be consideredacceptable for recreational and aquaculture uses.

Fig. 3: Ff'{({l rulijimn dis/duu/ion along /ilf /mnsf'{/ si/ua/nlnmr

thf Par/ Dirkson harbour ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank En. BadrulKhairi for typing the manuscript. This is an on­going project funded by IRPA (4-07-05-06).

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28/'2/87

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Date24.8.87 28.12.87 28.3.88 20.6.88 8.1.89 25.3.89 21.5.89 22.8.89

Station

Al < 0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2 <0.2 * < 0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2A2 < 0.2 < 0.2 3.3 <0.2 0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2A3 < 0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2 <0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2

Bl < 0.2 < 0.2 <0.2 <0.2 < 0.2B2 < 0.2 17 < 0.2 <0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2B3 < 0.2 0.2 < 0.2 <0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2

* = Not determined.

378 PERTANlKA VOL. 13, NO.3 [990

SEV\'AC[ POl.l.UTION IN THE COASTAl. WATERS OFF PORT DICKSO I

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L-\w, AT. 1980. Sewage Pollution in Kelang River andits Estuary. Pl'I"lfllli/w 3(1): 13-19.

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L-\\\', A.T...\:--ID AI..-\H.-\R OTH~L-\l\". 1985. Faecal coliformbacteria distribution in the Coastal "Vaters offPortDickson. Pl'I"lal/i/w 8(1): 131-134.

ME:\[)J.-\, L 1983. Assignment Report on TechnicalCooperation to Re\'iew the Marine Water QualityManagement Programme in Malaysia and theDevelopment of the Methodology fOl' AssessingWater Quality. "VHO Report ICPjRUDjOOI.

O\l"1'::\s, .J.D. (1978): Coliform and Escherichia coli

Bacteria in Seawater Around Penang Island,Malaysia. WaiN Res., 12: 365-370.

TONc, S.L., .-\ND AT. L-\w. 1988. Water Quality Criteriafor Coastal Zone Management. Paper presentedat the fnl('l"l/aliol/al COI/J('I"fnrf Oil 'rhe i\![arillfl:'nvimmnflll: C/zallangfsanrl OjJjJorlll nilifS. 31 March­2 April 1988. Environment Management AndResearch Association of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.

WORLD Hr:.-\LTH OR(;ANlI.ATlON. 1975. Guides andCriteria for Recreational Quality of Beaches andCoastal Waters, Bilthoven, 28 Oct.-l Nov. 1974,EURO 3125(1).

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WOR!.D HEALTH ORCANIi'.-\TION. I977b. Health Criteriaand Epidemiological Studies Related to CoastalWater Pollution. Report of a Group of Expertsjointly convened by WHO and UNEP. Athens, 1-4March 1977. ACPJCEP 209jA(2).

(Ral'iVl'rl 30'/flI1lUII)', 1990)

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