Macritchie
How is it involved in the construction of the Cross Island Line
The Proposal (1): Direct Route Across Macritchie
The Cross Island Line is proposed to cut across Central Catchment Nature Reserves by 4 metres, accordingly to the route illustrated below.
Problems and Implications
As the CCNR is an environmentally sensitive area with holds species that are protected under the Parks and Trees Act (2006), the Land Authority of Singapore (LTA) has planned to construct the railway lines 40m deep under the grounds of the CCNR and Macritchie.
The construction under this method poses a potential problem of soil erosion from the core drilling of 72 deep bore holes along the alignment. Boreholes are vertical shafts which are drilled into the ground to measure the level of rock present in the soil. If measured that the level of rocks in CCNR is more towards hard rocks, then it would be safer to construct the lines with lower risks involved.
In the report for the first phase of Environmental Impact Assessment, it was clarified that the LTA would reduce the number of boreholes from 72 to 16, with a maximum spacing of 400metres apart. The 10-cm wide holes will also be built along existing trails such as along the Sime Track and Terentang trail in Macritchie. This would avoid the need to clear more vegetations at site.
However, are 16 bore holes enough to support the whole railway line?
Also, the digging of boreholes do not only cause soil erosion. The illustration below shows how it will harm the whole ecology, mainly damage to the hydrology of our ecosystem and occurences of land pollution.
Apart from that, the damage done while contructing the MRT line would directly affect the dynamic biodiversity found in the CCNR. The CCNR forms a habitat for around 400 species of trees, 200 species of birds, 400 species of insects and 150 species of mammals and amphibians, according to a 2014 report released by some of the nature groups. Furthermore, some of the forests found today are just patches from what we had many years ago. Today, less than 0.5% of the original primary forest cover remains and it can only be found in small patches, within the Central Catchment Nature Reserve and the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. For instance, the rare primary freshwater swamp only has its remaining patch at the Nee Soon Swamp Forest in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. How much more natural green spaces can we afford to let go?
Species affected may include The the Keruing (Dipterocarpus spp.) and Meranti (Shoreaspp.) as well as the critically endangered Banded Leaf Monkey (Presbytis femoralis), the Sunda Pangolin (Manis javanica) and many more.
