Story by Victor Seow
Pix by Wong Boon Foei
CHIEF Minister Lim Guan Eng on Oct 28 officiated the RM344,000 Rain Garden at Jalan Jeti Lama which is an added attraction for Bagan Dalam.
The Rain Garden is equipped with its own ecology system and functions as a natural sieve for rain water while also serving as a conceptualised pocket park for the surrounding area.
The Rain Garden is a depressed planted ground that helps to manage rain water runoff from impervious urban surfaces such as carparks.
It filters out pollutants and increases rain water infiltration before residue water is discharged into drains.
Research has shown that this bio-retention system, aligned to the principles of Water Sensitive Urban Design, can reduce the amount of pollution reaching drains and streams by up to 30%.
Among the other components of the Rain Garden are a raised platform or stage, pump and channel, stepped terrace, lightings, seats and parking lots catering for bicycles and people with special needs.
It was completed in August this year with RM100,000 being provided by the state government.
The balance of the amount was borne by Think City.
Besides the Rain Garden, the event also featured the launch of the latest book by cartoonist Azmi Hussin titled “Lost in Bagan”.
It is his third book after “Tanjong Life” and “Little Mamak”.
Azmi earned his entry into the Malaysia Book of Records for having the most number of caricatures done in a single day.
He’s also the cartoonist whose creativity and sense of humour result in the “easier to grasp” cartoons laced with state government policies which appear in Buletin Mutiara.
Also present were exco members Lim Hock Seng (Works, Utilities and Transport) and Phee Boon Poh (Welfare, Caring Society and Environment), Bagan Dalam assemblyman A. Tanasekharan and Seberang Perai Municipal Council (MPSP) president Datuk Rozali Mohamud.