Oliva Ng and Minister Yaccob Ibrahim

On Tuesday, Jul 27 2010, my colleague Paul Ramani and I went down to Marina Barrage with three students to receive a certificate of appreciation for Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s participation in the Singapore International Water Week 2010. It was a culmination of months of hard work, planning, teeth-gnashing, nagging, marshalling and worrying.

Our News Writing module never covered real-world events. Could our occasionally young and sheltered 18-year-olds nail the stories? Could they deliver on Black & Veatch’s SIWWdiary.com and still write stories for their own newspaper projects on water?

Even though we were the smallest contingent among all the five polytechnics that day, I was just so thrilled to see our petite Olivia Ng Li Wen receive the certificate from Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim.

While my students and colleague disappeared into the buffet queues, I wandered to catch the view of the Singapore Flyer in the sunset as I walked beneath the fountains. I was particularly mesmerised by the arresting architecture of Marina Bay Sands rising above the barrage into the night sky like a sea dragon.

Minister Yaacob Ibrahim and Ngee Ann Poly students and staff

I drank in the sight – I didn’t need dinner. I was thinking of how it reminded me of the line “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

It is the seductive first line of Professor Robert Glennon’s book, Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It. He goes on to say how this line sums up how Sin City “invites visitors to lose their inhibitions, violate their moral principles, forget about their spouses, and ignore their credit card balances.” Water in Las Vegas is consumed as if the city is not in a desert; as if it has not exhausted its rights to Colorado River water from Lake Mead, notes the good professor.

That was how Marina Bay Sands looked to me – a multi-headed hydra of temptation and power rising above the gentle curves of the barrage.

It reminded me of the buzz at the Singapore International Water Week from Jul 28 to Jul 2. In just five days, our students had to pick their way through a heady confluence of brains, power, ambition and influence, and yes, even misgovernance, to sniff out stories for their newspaper project. I don’t know a more intriguing mix of stories and news makers for a journalism student who had only started on News Writing for three months.

Yes, our students were young but they were unafraid. At no point did they turn tail and run. And for that I am very proud of them.

Joshua Tay wrote about meeting ambassadors while Iris Koh and Shona Rajamohan wrote about effusive water companies selling a great variety of technology at the Water Expo. There was no limit to any problem and money readily rolled.

Getting their posts published on SIWWdiary was great. But to be asked by the moderator to re-edit was to learn to be as fast and business-like as a real-world writer. And to be in the thick of political speeches about water policy for the next 50 years gave our students Fanny Koh and Olivia Ng a glimpse into how pressing hydro-political issues were.

Essentially, it is decided, Singapore will rely less on imported water and be more aggressive in pursuing a water conservation policy aimed at harvesting “every drop of water” over 90 percent of our land area. We will also use more reclaimed water and build a second desalination plant.

I am particularly drawn to how Prof Glennon writes about Las Vegas’ hungry yet relentless re-invention despite being stuck in a desert. The general manager of Southern Nevada Water Authority, Pat Mulroy, pitched water conservation to casino owners and developers as a business issue, he said. Thus Steve Wynn built a state-of-the-art reverse osmosis wastewater treatment system beneath Treasure Island. “Everything  that hits the sewer system is recycled… we recycle 100% of our water,” boasts Ms Mulroy in Prof Glennon’s book.

If a one-time whistle stop on a railroad in the desert can become the fastest-growing city in the US, and the No. 1 convention destination that received 39 million visitors in 2006, why can’t Singapore reinvent itself to recycle and reuse 100% of its water and grow from good to great?

Our journalism students can be part of the dream, telling that story for generations of Singaporeans to come.

I could not have imagined a better event supported by more committed people from PUB and Black & Veatch. My deepest appreciation goes to Sharon Chang and Lilian Lim who first asked Ngee Ann to contribute student volunteers; and to Constance Ward and Keith Morrison of Black & Veatch for their nurturing enthusiasm.

In the coming weeks, we will be going through a debrief and we hope to find ways to do it better another time. Here’s hoping we will meet again next year.

Posted by Joh Ting KOH, Lecturer, School of Film & Media Studies, Ngee Ann Polytechnic