STOMPer Lily was shocked to discover that the water in a canal at Clementi West had turned bright blue in colour. The STOMPer was puzzled by this strange phenomenon which lasted for a couple of hours.
Lily says:
"I saw this in the afternoon today(7 Feb) at around 4pm.
"I don’t know why the water turned bright blue in colour. It lasted for a couple of hours and now it is less noticeable.
"I just hope that it is not some kind of pollution as there are a lot of wildlife in this area, such as kingfishers and cranes, which drink and feed from the canal."
The canals in the Clementi area probably drain into Sungei Ulu Pandan. Further downstream, one can find one of Singapore's last few remaining patches of mangrove forest. It's always a little worrying to hear about such cases of pollution occurring in our urban waterways, since it does affect the health of the aquatic ecosystems downstream, and possibly even the marine habitats found around the river mouth.
It does make me wonder if the cleanliness of the water in the Marina Reservoir is at risk of being compromised, since the Kallang and Singapore Rivers drain quite a large area of urban and suburban Singapore, and all it takes is one irresponsible company or even a single individual to render the entire reservoir unusable.
By the way, the 'cranes' mentioned by the person who submitted the post are most probably egrets or herons (F. Ardeidae), since no species of crane is native to Singapore.
