Muddy Waters

I was going by the Singapore River not too long ago,. The once murky polluted waters was cleaned up in 1987, at which time the Government celebrated their success with the Clean Rivers Commemoration event. Well, after one heavy downpour, muddy waters came back. What a contrasting image now to see a dirty river from old Singapore against the modern downtown in the background.

Fortunately, the river’s not polluted like before. It’s just the mud from the riverbed that has been stirred up due to the torrential rains. It would be rather disturbing if otherwise, since the river now drains into the Marina Reservoir, one of the sources of our clean water.

I was reading a little bit on the clean up of the Singapore River. It was initiated by My Lee Kuan Yew in 1977. It took ten years to clean up both the Singapore River and the Kallang Basin. Since then the banks on both sides of the river has transformed.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew, as you might have heard by now, celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday. He has undoubtedly been very instrumental in the growth and development of Singapore. All the birthday-congratulatory messages I’m reading seem to write it like he’s a one-man-show. I don’t mean to undermine his achievements, but let’s not forget that he had a great team too.