Dear Friends,
For the month-to-date, we are pleased to report that a total of 8 new applicants signed up to join our Society. Cancellation of programs for March continues (with great financial impact to our operation), but we are beginning to receive some enquiries for program bookings for the later part of 2020. Hopefully we will receive more over the next few weeks.
While the COVIN-19 may be expected to be around for a longer period, WWS is making an effort to mitigate the impact due to the virus situation. Our actions on protecting the waterways would not be stopped by the COVIN-19. WWS is slowly resuming our activities with small groups for our own members and planning smaller one-off free programs for the public. This week, we set up a clean-up activity on Giving Dot SG for up to 10 pax to sign up. In total, eight members of the public and eight WWS members participated in this activity and picked up 20kg of litter within one and a half hour around Immigration Building (see photo). On Thursday, we had a recce to the newly approved route on Punggol Reservoir, on kayaks (8 pax) and on boats (8 pax). On Sunday, we had a trial session of small group kayak clean-up at Kallang for 10 participants (see photos).
This week, the Punggol team conducted one weekday boat patrol on Tuesday, four members involved. During the patrol, the Punggol Waterways was clean and quiet. There was no litter found in the water this week. No illegal fishing and wild animal was sighted.
On Saturday Morning, our weekly garden crew finally completed the entrance gate of our garden. Thank you, garden crew! There were six members conducting a bike patrol at Kallang (see photos). They again found much litter left at the bench beside Dragon Boat Nursery Beach (see photos). Seems that it has become a regular littering spot. A hammock was tied up on the tree and on the jetty next to Merdeka Bridge. An empty whiskey bottle was also found at the jetty (see photos). Moving forward, a cylinder was abandoned at the internal car park of the indoor stadium and a few plastic bottles and cans were thrown at the Stadium riverside walk(see photos). Along Tanjong Rhu park and Costa Rhu area, the littering situation was very bad and as well as the area between Duck Tour Launching area and Benjamin Sheares Bridge (see photos). A folding bike was seen left by the side with a punctured tyre(Pebble Bay Park).
On Sunday morning, seven members went out for bike patrol. Following the advice from CEO, they kept an eye on the morning event of Meta Sprint at the station conditions and the overall observations while patrolling. Meta Sprint placed many cones around corners causing some inconvenience to other public users with no guides around. They said they had Gardens approval. Should be engaged if they did not as this is a public park (see photos). The Meta Sprint event site next to the F1 pit open space was overall quite clean and neat. The signboard was placed at designated locations in a proper manner, but members still picked paper cups around the event site (see photos). Proceeding the patrol, members sighted few plastic cups and bottled drinks on the bench along the short stretch from MBS to Cloud Forest, likely being left by the park visitors. There was also lots of trash observed along with the dragon boat launching areas of Kallang Dragonboat Nursery Beach and it has become common on a weekly basis. Two punctured folding bikes were sighted at Pebble Bay Park. The number of picnicking groups in Kallang Riverside Park has greatly increased recently, but they are generally well behaved (see photos). Proceeding the patrol, members saw a man casting net along the bridge next to Kallang MRT Station. He is a regular fisherman around this area and known to be aggressive. Patrol did not engage but reported to PUB.(see photos). Coming to the end of the patrol, members spotted a young couple releasing catfish next to Crawford bridge opposite Kilo Restaurant. What’s more, according to this couple, the fish shop at Golden Mile Complex said its OK to release live fishes into the reservoir (we reported to PUB).
In the afternoon, three members did bike patrol at Jurong Lakeside Garden. There was not much public in the park this time and not much litter also. Unfortunately, the patrol was ended halfway due to the sudden heavy rain.
