meatball marinanara...The Marina Barrage II

Call me a nerd. But i went back to the Barrage again today! what a greeaat way to spend my saturday ((:

remember i was going on and on about littering and peeing in drains. well, this was what i saw today:


it saddens me to see this. granted, its on the sea-ward side of the Barrage. But i spotted bits of random rubbish floating arnd the fresh water side too.

many people complain about the lack of beaches in singapore, but honestly, with rubbish like that, thank god theres no proper, hawaiianish beaches.

anyways just a picture to prove my point about the tidal protection that the barrage offers:


lovely picture, taken by Ser Chung. notice:

1)the friendly lightning warning guy,

and most importantly,

2) the difference in water level on each side of the barrage. The seaward side (thats on the right of your screen) is notibly higher during high-tide.

you may ask what that "barrier" in front of the barrage is for, it is really to protect the Barrage from ships which may lose control and crash into the barrage (what are the odds?).

3) the seaward side is lighter in color (something to do with the minerals?) and also more choppy and wavy as it sees more sea traffic and wave actions.

i was a little disappointed today, cos i wanted to cross the bridge to the other side of marina. and follow the path and see where that leads.. but there was lightning! i'll do it the next time. another post den (:

stay tuned for next week! i'll be going to Chek Jawa intertidal walk with Karin and Willis. will bring back loads of photos to share!

for e.g. if we are lucky:
(i think this is a coral)

(and this is a stingray)

credits:
Kevin Lim, Tan Heok Hui and N. Sivasothi

*EXCITED*

special thanks to serchung for spending his precious saturday listening to me whine over every single piece of rubbish that i saw.

Some pretty cool sculptures at the Marina Barrage

Jiayi and I were fascinated by these 2 metallic things sitting in the mid-day sun at the Barrage.

At first we thought its one of those avant-garde (is that how you spell it?) shit that the govt likes to put arnd, you know so we can be cool like France:

But on a closer look, this is actually a sculpture that makes perfect sense!

its titled: "what goes around comes around". That circular thingie is actually that guy's finger - what you do to Earth, will eventually come back and smack you in the butt. you cant get away from it.

say, if you buybuybuy loads of things now (like me), and as a result produce a lot of rubbish and pollution (aiya its the process of making the things you buy, you get the point) which will eventually kill you or your sons/daughters/granddaughters etc off. i know its warp, but it makes sense.

sculpture number 2:

(WHY IS BLOGGER NOT RESPONDING)

ah okay, here is #2.

This is... "Mother nature's fury"

as we see, man(represented by the woman in this sculpture) tries to control and tame nature in various ways. We modify slopes at bukit batok, we channelise the Singapore river etc etc.

However, what we need to recognise is that, very often, Mother Nature still exerts control over us - landslides, floods, volcano eruption (oh i can go on and on abt volcanoes), earthquakes. its about time that we respect Mother Nature, before we spin things out of control.

okay i hereby pledge to control my implusive consumption. what about you?

Love, Serene!

____________________________________________________________________

btw, if you look closely, you can see jiayi and i in the picture P.S Jiayi, the sociologist-to-be, askedan interesting qn: Why is a WOMAN used in #2? can anyone answer that HAHAHAHA

meatball marinanara...The Marina Barrage I

I think LKY is a prophet.

"In 20 years, it is possible that there could be breakthroughs in technology- both anti-pollution and filtration. Then, we can dam up the mouth of the Marina, the neck which joins the sea. And we'll have a huge fresh water lake."

Lee Kuan Yew, 1987.

and here we have it! 22 years later,


the dam (or Barrage) and..

the promised Fresh water lake.


well, he IS the sandwich maker.

so what is this Barrage SUPPOSED to do:

1) Prevent flooding of the low-lying coastal areas - it acts as a barrier to keep out high tides, and also flushes out excess water during heavy rains

to give you an idea abt FLOODING in sg.. heres orchard rd , in front of Shaw in 1982 (HAHAHA im not born yet)

(i koped this off flickr, credits: Wonderlust676 (hmm) photo collection)

2) Adding on to the reservoir collection in Singapore -the number 15th reservoir.

HOWEVER!

there are some issues of concern.

- is the reservoir too deep? its nearly 100M deep (is it? correct me if im wrong here)


Jiayi said, "okay maybe its shallower at the inner parts"

i sure do hope so. the average depth of our reservoirs are.. 18m to 25m deep. Shallow reservoirs ensure even distribution of sediments and nutrients (okay fine, pollutants, we geographers like to be objective) in the water, making the water body treat-able for consumption. 100 M is really too deep!

PLUS! it is important to control the water quality of the lake... the worst case senario would be this:


okay i know it doesnt look that bad here. nice green things floating on the water, adds to the aesthetics right? but the nice green things are really algae, which proliferates when the water gets too "nutritious" (okay, polluted).

it will stink up the whole city.. not too pleasant people working/staying near marina eh? neither do we want to be remembered as "Green Sludge City".

so hopefully, PUB pays attention to this.

you too! HAHA think before you throw rubbish or pee into drains, you are really adding to the:" "nutrients level" which little by little, will flow to the various reservoirs/waterways. and in 50 years time.. ah i do not want to think about it.

SO, DO NOT LITTER OR PEE INTO DRAINS.

(to be continued)

Love, Serene!
____________________________________________________________________ Special thanks to: Ms Lim Jiayi, for accompanying me to the Barrage. Im still pissed that im the only one sunburnt!