Singapore sends notice to Indonesian firms for causing haze

Singapore's National Environment Agency (NEA) on Wednesday issued a Preventive Measures Notice under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act to an Indonesian company, the fifth after NEA issued similar notices to four Indonesian firms on Friday.

The notice requests that the company, namely PT Bumi Mekar Hijau, to deploy fire-fighting personnel to extinguish or prevent the spread of fire on land owned or occupied by them, discontinue burning activities on such land and to submit to NEA any plan of action to extinguish fires on such land or to prevent recurrence, according to Channel NewsAsia.

Under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, which was passed in parliament in 2014, Singapore can impose a fine of up to 100,000 Singapore dollars (70,400 U.S. dollars) for each day that a local or foreign company contributes to unhealthy levels of haze pollution in Singapore, the cap for the total fine is 2 million Singapore dollars (1.4 million U.S. dollars).

The haze situation continues to linger in the city-state in recent weeks, with the three-hour PSI hit 168 as of 7 pm on Wednesday, still within the Unhealthy range. NEA said in a statement that as the prevailing winds are forecast to continue blowing from the east-southeast or southeast, hazy conditions are expected to persist on Thursday. "The 24-hr PSI for the next 24 hours is expected to be in the high end of the Unhealthy range and low end of the Very Unhealthy range, and may deteriorate to the mid-section of the Very Unhealthy range if denser haze is blown in, " NEA said. Endi