A discourse analysis of urban water management in singapore from 1960 2009

Table of Contents Acknowledgments --- i Table of Contents --- ii Abstract --- iv List of Tables --- v List of Diagrams and Pictures--- v List of Abbreviations--- v Chapter 1 – Urba

Acknowledgments

The process of writing this thesis has been an invaluable journey This is thus a brief attempt to thank all those who have helped me along the way and made this experience

an unforgettable and precious one

Dear Papa and Mummy, thank you so much for believing in me and providing me with your enduring love and concern This would not have been possible without the support

of my dearest family members

A/P Maribeth Erb, thank you for your supervision and for taking the effort to read

through my countless drafts

Many thanks to the wonderful people I have met in the graduate programme, and who have make the experience a bearable one with all your laughter, smile, kind words, encouragement and support

Pam, thanks for the encouragement and insightful help along the way, and of course, the panic sessions we had towards the end were wonderful

Daniel Tham, you have been a great help, allowing me to go to your room and offering your little red chair for consultations and brainstorming

Eugene Liow, thank you for all the books off your overloaded shelves and the bouncing off of ideas for my thesis

Thomas Charles Alexandra Barker, cheers to the squash sessions and the random talks Seuty, Audrey, Chand, Mel, Mamta, Johan and Fiona, thanks for the countless laughter

we have shared and for the constant support and encouragement

Sahoo, for the insights about state and society

Manuel and Trin, thank you for being such wonderful friends and classmates

Allan, Chris, Fadzli, you have been a great company to have in school

Jialing, GeYun, HuiHsien, QiongYuan, LiHui, ZhenYi, MingHua, for the nice chat sessions and allowing me to patrol the other room as my break

Vincent, my tutor for SC2101, though we met again only after so long and for such a short while, you had been a great help in listening to my thesis ideas and helping me make sense of it

And of course, many many thanks to any others who I might have left out

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments - i

Table of Contents - ii

Abstract - iv

List of Tables - v

List of Diagrams and Pictures - v

List of Abbreviations - v

Chapter 1 – Urban Water and Power Relations - 1

1.1 Introduction - 1

1.2 The Relationship between Society and Urban Water Resources - 3

1.2.1 Understanding Power Dynamics within Water Politics 3

1.2.2 The Flow of Urban Water as a Politicized Process - 5

1.3 The Research Framework - 7

1.3.1 Contextualizing the Research Problem: Discourses Surrounding Water Management for a ‘Small Island with Limited Water Resources’ - 7

1.3.2 Theoretical Framework: The Flow of Urban Water and Power Relations - 12

1.4 Methodology: Discourse Analysis of Urban Water Management 16

1.4.1 Studying Discourses and Making Sense of Them - 16

1.4.2 Methods: Making Sense of the Managing of Water Resources in Singapore - 18

1.5 Outline of Chapters - 21

Chapter 2 – Urbanizing Water and Sanitation in Colonial Singapore - 24

2.1 Developing Urban Water for a Colonial Municipal Town - 24

2.2 Constructing and Contesting the Urban Water System - 26

2.3 Dealing with Water and Sanitation for an Expanding Population 27

2.4 The Beginning of Singapore’s Water Relationship with Malaysia 29

2.5 Making Sense of the Colonial Implication - 31

Chapter 3 – Water as a Precious Commodity: Development and Growth in the 1960s-1970s - 34

3.1 Industrialization and Urbanization: Constructing Public Utilities as Resources - 34

3.2 Interpreting Demand and Supply: Developing Singapore’s Urban Water Management System - 38

3.3 Managing an Independent Singapore: Urban Renewal and Reorganization - 42

3.4 Constructing a Boundary of Social Responsibility in a ‘Clean’ Singapore - 47

3.5 Anti-Pollution Campaign: Dominating Urban Water and Urban Environment - 49

3.6 Debating Wastage: The Subjectivities of Water Scarcity - 54

3.7 Controlling Domestic Consumption: Water as a Limited Resource—58

Chapter 4 – “Don’t Use Water Like There’s No Tomorrow”: Changing Ideas

About Water in the 1980s-1990s - 62

4.1 Increasing Affluence and Economic Restructuring in the 1980s - 62

4.2 Water Conservation Campaigns in the Early-1980s - 66

4.3 Promoting Efficiency in the Non-Domestic Sectors - 71

4.4 Engaging the Ideology of Possibilism - 73

4.5 Engaging Ideals of Sustainable Development: Conserving Water for the Future - 76

4.6 The Asian Financial Crisis - 84

4.7 Overcoming Crisis: Embedding a Discourse of Ecological Modernization - 87

Chapter 5 – Developing Water Technologies and Creating a ‘City of Gardens and Water’ in the 2000s - 90

5.1 Constructing Singapore’s ‘Four National Taps’: Technological - 90

Development as National Development 5.2 ‘Mind Over Matter’: Legitimizing NEWater as a National Tap - 95

5.3 Closing the Water-Loop: Totalizing Control over Urban Water 101

5.4 Developing Singapore’s Water Industry - 107

5.5 Managing Urban Water, Managing People - 112

5.6 Consuming a ‘City of Gardens and Water’ Lifestyle - 116

Chapter 6 – Conclusion - 126

6.1 Urban Water and Governance - 126

6.2 Making Sense of Discourses Surrounding Urban Water Management in Singapore -129

6.2.1 Developmentalism - 129

6.2.2 Pragmatism - 130

6.2.3 Environmental Possibilism - 131

6.2.4 Ecological Modernization - 132

6.3 Urban Water Politics: Policies Implications and Further Development - 134

Bibliography - 136

Abstract

Water as a resource is crucial for the survival of human beings and the subsequent formative development of human civilizations Such an attestation of the importance of water however is not to suggest that there is any intrinsic value of water per se Instead, it

is more appropriate to argue that the relevance of water facilitates its politicization, and it

is in fact such processes of politicization that shape and affect the relationship between the society and water resources Hence, within the urban context, urban water is inevitably even more complicated, as it is further subjected to the dynamism of the society, polity and economy of the urban context Accordingly, urban water is invariably bounded with the power relations of the urban context, and comes to be affected by as well as is influential to the flow of everyday life within the urban condition In the case of Singapore, the state has often brought up the claim that Singapore is a small country with limited water resources Such a claim however is not a fixed one, and has been discursively engaged in different ways during different periods From more overt punishment to discipline the population and to ensure sufficient water for development in the earlier years of independence, the focus has been shifting towards that of regularizing the relevance of an integrated urban water management system where the population have come to identify strongly with the consumption of a ‘City of Gardens and Water’ lifestyle This thesis adopts a discourse analysis of urban water management in Singapore from the 1960s to the 2000s In order to facilitate such a study, this thesis adopts Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of power and knowledge alongside Zygmunt Bauman’s postmodern engagement of the aesthetic of consumption to explain the power relations related with urban water This thesis argues that the discursive shift in urban water management in Singapore has been characterized by an increasing softening of the state’s rhetoric of control over the years which allows for the developmental state to continue its interventionist style of governance within everyday life

List of Tables

Table 3.1: Water Consumption and Population Patterns from 1965-1980 - 44

Table 3.2: Singapore’s Reservoirs and Storage Capacity - 61

Table 4.1: Water Consumption and Population Patterns from 1980-1989 - 64

Table 4.3: Water Consumption and Population Patterns from 1990-1999 - 76

Table 4.4: Water Tariff and Water Conservation Tax in 1997 - 86

Table 4.5: Water Price Restructuring 1998-2000 - 87

Table 5.1: NEWater and Industrial Water Sales, 2004-2009 - 98

Table 5.2: Non-Domestic Water Consumption in Singapore, 2000-2009 - 98

Table 5.3: Domestic Water Consumption and Population Patterns from 2000-2009 106

List of Figures and Pictures Figure 3.1: Poster for Singapore’s Anti-Pollution Campaign in 1973 - 51

Figure 5.1: Singapore’s Water-Loop - 102

Figure 5.2: Artist Impression of Waterfront living at Punggol Town - 119

Picture 5.1: Water Sports at Marina Basin - 121

Picture 5.2: Water Sports at Marina Basin (2) - 121

Picture 5.3: Family Outing at the Marina Barrage - 122

Picture 5.4: Picnicking and Outdoor Activities for the Family at the Marina Barrage - 122 Picture 5.5: Firework Celebrations around the Marina Barrage Area - 122

Figure 5.3: Marina Barrage: Sustainable Singapore Gallery - 124

List of Abbreviations

ABC Waters Program - Active, Beautiful and Clean Waters Programme DTSS - Deep Tunnel Sewerage System

EDB - Economic Development Board

ENV - Ministry of Environment

GDP - Gross Domestic Product

HDB - Housing and Development Board of Singapore

ENV - Ministry of Environment

MEWR - Ministry of Environment and Water Resources MTI - Ministry of Trade and Industry

NRF - National Research Foundation

NSS - Nature Society (Singapore)

NWC - National Wage Council of Singapore

PAP - People’s Action Party

PUB - Public Utilities Board of Singapore

SIWW - Singapore International Water Week

WEH Program - Water Efficient Homes program

WELS - Water Efficiency Labeling Scheme

WHO - World Health Organization

WCT - Water Conservation Tax

Chapter One

Urban Water and Power Relations

Often major water innovations leveraged the economic, population, and territorial expansion that animated world history Those unable to overcome the challenge of being farthest removed from access to the best water resources, by contrast, were invariably among history’s poor

to feed the human population At the third level, water has often been engaged as a crucial resource for various further developments within the globalised capitalist system, such as using it within the process of mass production and manufacturing, the subsequent processes of storage and transportation, and also increasingly for consumption purposes

in the service and tourism sectors Hence, water resources are of high importance to all societies, and have always been a key concern for management, with this tending to be even more so for those with limited or constrained access to a sufficient supply of water (Swyngedouw 2004; Varis 2006; Lemos 2008; Whiteley et al 2008; Miller 2009) Such attribution of the importance of water, however, does not mean that subsequent process

of water management is merely an issue of supply and demand, as the relevance lies more within the process of accessing, engaging and mobilizing water in tandem with the larger social, economic and political dynamics

As Staddon (2010:6) identifies, “water has long been elemental not only to the human imagination, but also to survival, [and] beyond that, social order and spatial organization”, where much of the history of successful civilizations has often been organized around their abilities to secure sufficient access to water resources With water

being an important resource for developmental purposes, its subsequent management, especially within the urban context, tends to be highly politicized, and is often affected

by, as well as influential towards, existing power relations (Swyngedouw 2004; Ekers and Loftus 2008) The complexities of politics surrounding urban water thus take place

on various levels, including that of securing water sources, managing and distributing of water supply, and the ideological engagement of discourses surrounding the management process The processes involved in water politics are not mere technical issues, nor are they neutral objectivities Instead, the relationships that have come to exist between societies and water are and always will be embedded within the complexities of the society, polity and economy As Luke (1997:xi) argues, “nothing in nature is simply given within society, environmental terms must be assigned significance by every social group that mobilize them as meaningful constructs”

This thesis seeks to shed light on the complexities surrounding the formation of urban water, and shows how it is a politicized process within a dialectical relationship with society, polity and economy Through a discourse analysis of Singapore’s water management system, this thesis attempts to explore how discourses surrounding urban water management in Singapore have been constructed and represented over the years since the country’s independence, and studies how the discourses have been affected by, and have themselves affected the country’s political economy Subsequently, this thesis seeks to further deliberate on the power relations associated with urban water This thesis plans to show how social control has been enacted by the developmental state as it developed its urban water management system, alongside the consequent formation of an increasingly consumerist and anthropocentric relationship between society and urban water in Singapore It is the argument of this thesis that the discursive shift in urban water management in Singapore has been depicted within an increasing softening of the state’s rhetoric of control over the years, and it is precisely because of such engagement that the

state is able to continue its interventionist style of governance within everyday life

1.2 The Relationship between Society and Water Resources

1.2.1 Understanding Power Dynamics within Water Politics

The significance of the relationship between water and governance has been discussed by Wittfogel (1957) in his historical study of the ‘hydraulic society’, where he hypothesized that power relations of the early Chinese civilization largely existed through

an intricate system of water management that adopted a complex irrigation scheme He argued that the Chinese state was a despotic one, where control over the population was maintained through the state’s overt centralized system of handling the civilization’s water supply amidst arid conditions Wittfogel places a strong emphasis on the centralized management dimension, and it is arguably correct to acknowledge the relevance given to the power of the state in terms of control over the flow of water However, Wittfogel’s claim that the Chinese state was despotic overly emphasizes the authority of a centralized management system to control water resources, while neglecting much of the varying nuances of other variables of the polity, society and economy

The social and political relevance of water was also highlighted by Staddon (2010), who argues that much of the development of human civilizations was organized around access to waterways for water supply, transport and trade Historically, it has been widely acknowledged that much of the capacity to gain access to adequate water supply was important to the development and expansion of human conquests, and much contestation and struggle has been centred on issues related to water (Lowi 1993; Greaves 1998; Dolatyar and Gray 2000; Whitely et al 2008) Staddon notes that water resources were increasingly crucial to social and economic dimensions of nations, and argues for the need to manage water resources appropriately as this would be important to ensuring a continuing development of the European countries that he was addressing Staddon managed to acknowledge the complexities involved in water resource management, but stopped short at actually developing the intricacies of the processes involved within the water management system

More often than not, the very process of securing water further involves interactions between different parties with various vested interests, including those from local, regional, and international arenas With the increasing global concern towards environmental problems, there have been many debates and policies surrounding environmental issues that have led to an increasing politicization of the environment (Hajer 1995; Yearly 1996; Weller 2006; Sassen 2006) With the impacts and complications of globalization, water issues, alongside the focus on environmental concerns have also been further complicated by the intricacies of the global political economy Despite such global development, Dolatyar and Gray (2000), in their study on water politics in the Middle East, argue that it is impossible to have any universal explanation for water conflicts, and there is a need to engage and understand the contextual conditions surrounding water politics As Dolatyar and Gray (2000:207) further suggest, water scarcity issues have increasingly been globalized, but the global conflict over water is inevitably embedded within the context of other ongoing “political, legal, economic and cultural factors” The focus of environmentally and ecologically charged new policies that have gained popularity is not only about resolving the environmental problems; they are often means of contesting political control of the environment and/or legitimacy of a state in regulating the environment and environmentally related concerns (Rutherford 1999; Forsyth 2003)

Urban water politics is often complicated by complexities of access, ownership, distribution and management of water resources which cannot be resolved by mere engagement of demand and supply Even the idea of scarcity cannot be divorced from the social context, and as Johnston and Donahue (1998:2) relate, “water scarcity is more than

a matter of decreased supply or increased demand Water scarcity is influenced by a variety of factors, including topography, climate, economic activities, population growth, cultural beliefs, perceptions and traditions and power relations” Much debate surrounding water issues is often premised upon controlling the flow of water, where various political, economic and social actors contest over the ownership and distribution

of the water supply (Barlow 2007) Notably, the idea of scarcity is often an

inter-subjective one where the concern tends to be shaped by the perceived significance of relative scarcity and subsequent engagement with that issue

1.2.2 The Flow of Urban Water as a Politicized Process

The complexities surrounding water resources are significantly complicated by the effects of the rapidly expanding urban context; as Harvey (1973:22) notes, “the city is manifestly a complicated thing”, where the effects of the urban condition cannot be comprehended in a universal or unilateral manner The significance of water in the urban context is highlighted by Swyngedouw (2004:37) who argues that “the urbanization process is predicated upon the mastering and engineering of nature’s water, with the ecological conquest of water as a necessary prerequisite for the expansion and growth of the city” Despite the tendency to take water for granted within the process of urban development, it is undeniable that water plays a critical role in the dynamics of the urban context, and is often a key part of the existing power relations of the city It is therefore necessary to approach urban water as a socially constituted concept; how it is used, perceived and understood are invariably affected by and influential towards the dynamism of power relations existing within the city These power relations affect the management of urban water (Bennett 1995; Buttel 1997)

The political economy of water is crucial to the further development of the city

No matter how naturalized water may seem, it is always politicized within the urbanized context Furthermore, Swyngedouw (2004:1) argues that “urban water is necessarily transformed, ‘metabolized’ water, not only in terms of its physico-chemical characteristics, but also in terms of its social characteristics and its symbolic and cultural meaning” Therefore, the meanings attributed to water consumption within the urban context can differ accordingly, and as Shove (2003a:198) suggests, “the vast majority of environmentally significant consumption is not just a matter of individual choice It is instead bound up with, and constitutive of, irredeemably social practices ‘governed by norms like respectability, appropriateness, competence and excellence’” Apart from water being a physical product, the consumption of urban water is also about consuming the meanings associated with urban water (Featherstone 2000; Bauman 2005)

The complexities of urban water in the contemporary context is also further engaged by Gandy (2004), who argues that with the evolving engagement of water networks within cities, there exists an emerging dynamic of ‘fragmentation’ and

‘differentiation’ in relation to which urban spaces are being constantly shaped and reshaped The idea of fragmentation and differentiation, as Gandy argues, is based upon how water management has increasingly become more complicated and diversified, with different private and non-governmental agencies entering the picture as water shifts from being a public good towards a marketable commodity It is arguable that regulating the flow of urban water is a crucial component for further development of urban conditions However, an understanding of such developments is not as simple as attempting to improve any sort of water infrastructure; it is also about engaging the discursive dimensions of a water management system to understand the formation and impacts of urban water

The formation and implementation of policies surrounding urban water management are dependent on the socio-political and historical context of the urban condition (Asthana 2009) Even though policies with regards to the management of water for the urban context are most commonly seen as mere technical solutions to water issues, the reality is often much more complex Existing policies surrounding water-related concerns are largely the result of the dynamic interactions between various actors and vested interests, and are often depicted within the discursive representation of the management of urban water as a naturalized process Yet, such naturalized representations are inter-subjectively constituted, and as Christoff (2000:210) argues, environmental policies are not simply reactions to solve environmental issues but are reactions to the constantly “evolving international discourse in response to commonly perceived environmental problems [and] …reflect an increasingly sophisticated political response by government and industry to[wards] popular mobilization such as nuclear power, acid rain, biodiversity preservation, ozone depletion and induced climate change” Often, urban water is handled by a centralized system of sorts in which water supply is managed for the urban city Accordingly, the concern is largely about controlling and

dominating the flow of water, and subsequently controlling the flow of everyday life (Swyngedouw 2004)

This thesis suggests there is thus a need to move beyond the apparent benevolent perceptions of environmental policies, especially the taken-for-granted aspect of urban water management, and to go deeper to examine the significance of associated discourses

to better understand the complex relationship between society and environment Within the larger political economy of the environment, that “the new environmental conflict is not just [an] environmental problem but one which is a complex and continuous struggle over the definition and the meaning of the environmental problem itself” (Hajer 1995:14) The very idea of urban water management is not simply about a reaction towards any objective concerns about water issues, but it is also a process that has been problematized and politicized within the larger dynamics of the urban context Hence, this thesis suggests, there is a need for a more critical review of discourses surrounding urban water management to understand how water has been constructed and valued, and how this is related to how water is managed in the context of the city

1.3 The Research Framework

1.3.1 Contextualizing the Research Problem: Discourses Surrounding Water Management for a ‘Small Island with Limited Water Resource’

During the British colonization in the 1800s and with the rapid industrialization and urbanization adopted by the post-colonial developmental state after independence, the management of urban water in Singapore has long been an important component of the country’s administration (Yeoh 2003; Tortajada 2006) Even though rainfall tends to

be plentiful and consistent, there exists a physical limitation in terms of capturing, retaining and storing much of this rainwater; without intervention much of this potential water supply is easily lost (Lee 2003).1 With a land area of only 710.2 square kilometers, Singapore’s geographical limitation has historically constrained the local water supply as

1

Historically, Singapore has had limited local water supply as local means of water catchment have been largely constrained by land space concerns; it is only more recently that technological breakthroughs have allowed Singapore to overcome this concern In 2008, Singapore captured a total rainfall of 2,325mm and this is representative of figures over the past five years The highest annual figure in the past five years was 2,886 mm in 2007 and the lowest at 1,931mm in 2005 (Singapore Yearbook of Statistics 2009)

the country could only retain minimal water supplies through the island’s few natural sites of water catchment (Lee 2005).2 Recently these limitations have been compounded

by a heavy population density, which reached 6,814 per square kilometer in 2008.3 The already limited land spaces and the ensuing development thus further constrained the island’s capacity for creating more water catchment areas Dense population in Singapore also means water demand far exceeds what the country can locally supply.4

In order to accommodate the population’s demand for water, Singapore‘s urban water management system has been shaped and affected by its geopolitics Much focus has been invested in the negotiations of buying water from neighboring countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia The contentious debates over the pricing of water with Malaysia, the end of the first of two water agreements with Malaysia in 2011, and the unfulfilled talks of buying water from the Riau Islands in Indonesia have had considerable impact on Singapore’s water supply and its ensuing water management system Such issues of limited local water resources, alongside the contentious international relationships over water concerns, have not stopped the small city-state from developing, however, and increasing its consumption of water (Tortajada 2006) On the contrary, Singapore has managed to adopt various strategies to develop rapidly while expanding the country’s consumption of water over the years, and has even turned water resources into one of its strategic investments towards the twenty-first century through its successful technological developments The discursive component in constructing the varying capacities of the state as being able to overcome the supposed problem of potential water shortages over the years, and to push for the idealized notion of growth and development,

is therefore a significant one worth examining

Over the years, the developmental state has managed to create an urban water management system which has adopted various measures to deal with the shortage of water during different periods The policies surrounding urban water management have been successful in dealing with the various concerns surrounding Singapore’s water

resources, alongside the developmental state’s striving for growth and development As Hajer (1995:15) argues, “policies are not devised to solve problems; problems also have

to be devised to be able to create policies” The management of urban water is not a mere outcome of water management policies, but the policies are also in turn part of the interactive process embedded within the discursive formation of urban water Amidst the developmental state’s urban water management system, the claim that Singapore is a

‘small island with limited water resources’ has consistently been adopted over the years, and has significantly affected and shaped much of the flow of urban water in the city-state The persistence of such a claim, however, does not mean that the position of the state has remained unchanged over the years Instead, considerable relevance lies in how the developmental state has successfully manipulated varying understandings and interpretations of a discourse of “smallness” and “limited resources”, and managed them with other concordant discourses to construct and validate a continual legitimacy of its governance over the years

Such reflections about urban water as being discursive are not to suggest that the issues surrounding water-related concerns have not really existed in Singapore, and/or were simply constructed by the developmental state for overt purposes of dominating the population Instead, I am suggesting a more nuanced understanding with reference to Goh’s (2001:23) conceptualization of nature as one which is “inalienable from the inter-subjective realm” It would be problematic to simply see nature as being intrinsically meaningful, as it is largely subjected to normative forces; this idea is aptly highlighted by Turner (2008:196) who argues that “nature exists as an external, objective reality, but is it also transformed by labor and socially appropriated, becoming an internal reality of human development” How water as a resource is being engaged and experienced is what matters to a society

How water is integrated within everyday life in Singapore has changed over the years Water has shifted from being seen as a limited resource threatening Singapore’s survival in early independence to a strategic resource for economic investment and the realization of a sustainable and livable city In contrast to most authoritarian governments

in developing countries, governance by the developmental state in Singapore has not been a mere case of outright or coercive authoritarianism, but has been largely discursive (Castells 1988) Most of the state’s actions have been based upon hegemonic governance through strategic management of social and political apparatuses, and not overtly oppressive or violent acts (Chua 1995) Amidst the underlying developmentalist rhetoric adopted since independence, the focus on developing the environment for the progression

of Singapore has persisted with the engagement of the logic of pragmatism that the state has adopted and has convinced the society to adhere to Chua (1995:58) identifies, such adherence to pragmatism adopted in Singapore as “a conscious formulation of its leaders

as an explicit ideology”, which allows the developmental state to push for much action in the name of pragmatic developments for Singapore.5 “Pragmatism” focuses not only what is being done, but on what can be done In such a context, Kong and Yeoh (1996:402) also reflect on the logic of pragmatism amidst the conceptualization of

‘nature’ in Singapore; they argue that nature has in fact been socially constructed “to satisfy human needs and purposes by colonial and post-colonial state agencies”

The ideological relevance of the capacity to deal with pragmatic concerns was further reinforced as Singapore became increasingly affluent from the 1980s onward With this the political rhetoric began to shift towards ideas of “possibilism”, where the focus was on the possibility of overcoming limitations and achieving development Savage (1997), who discusses the ideological dominance of ‘environmental possibilism’, acknowledges that ‘anthropocentrism’ is a determining factor for environment-related actions Savage defines ‘anthropocentrism’, as an awareness of the inevitable consequences of human interactions on the environment because of development, which eventually leads to the necessity of mitigation The ideological significance of environmental possibilism is that a need is constructed for the state to overcome natural environmental constraints for the economic and social betterment of Singapore The developmental state thus manages to retain relevance by reifying the capacities of it’s environmental policies to provide for the continual development of Singapore In this

5

Such development has been prevalent since the early years of independence, and has also been reflected

by Ooi (1995), who talks about the relevance of pragmatism to the environmental planning process of Singapore, albeit in a more condescending manner

context, “environmental possibilism” becomes a passive and reactionary ‘fact’ that is inevitable, and supports a conviction of the state’s capacity to react to the country’s adverse conditions

However, as a post-industrial economy began to develop in Singapore, the reactionary account of possibilism was enhanced by a discourse of ecological modernization According to Hajer (1995:32), “ecological modernization is basically a modernist and technocratic approach to the environment that suggests that there is a techno-institutional fix for present problems … [and is often premised upon concepts of] efficiency, technological innovation, techno-scientific management, procedural integration and coordinated management” The significance of the discourse of ecological modernization is that it departs from possibilism’s reactionary mode, and is in itself, an active component Under the discourse of ecological modernization, the ecology is defined and construed as a significant realm of its own within the context of progress under the ideals of modernization (Christoff 2000; Spaargaren and Vilet 2000; Pello et al 2000; Mol and Sonnerfeld 2000) The state has constructed its position as one that not only ensures Singapore’s progress amidst environmental constraints, but also embeds Singapore, through its management system, within the ideals of modernization The discursive relevance lies in how Singapore not only negotiates environmental constraints, but actively engages in defining a mutually reinforcing relationship between the society and the surrounding ecology

In attempting to make sense of the subsequent development of the urban environment, there is the need to be critical of taking normalized nature for granted, and

“challenging [a view] which simply objectif[ies] nature as the Other outside of [the] social/ human” (Vogel 1996:9) In order to better understand the developments of Singapore’s urban water management system in with the context of the broader political economy, it is necessary to critically explore and make sense of the intricacies of the discourses surrounding the management of the urban water system, where changes are being closely tied with the development of both the nation and the state

1.3.2 Theoretical Framework: The Flow of Urban Water and Power Relations

In this thesis, I suggest that urban water resource management in Singapore has been discursively shaped by the developmental state to help legitimize its position of power As Swyngedouw (2006:118-119) argues, “environmental and social changes co-determine each other”; there is a need to understand that “questions of socio-environment(al) sustainability are therefore fundamentally political questions” In order

to better address the complexities of power relations existing within the management of urban water, there is a need to further engage the intricacies of power formation I utilize Foucault (1995:194) who highlights that “power produces, it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth” to understand how urban water is embedded in everyday life and is not a straightforward object, but is interdependent with the power relations existing within the city

In order to make sense of the capacity of urban water management to legitimate not just development, but also power relations in the urban context, it is necessary to move beyond the technicalities of water management to engage the discursive shifts and discursive structures embedded within urban water management To further an understanding of discourses surrounding urban water, I engage with the idea that the relation between power and knowledge is a fluid one; Foucault (1995:265) elaborated

“we should be trying to study power not on the basis of primitive terms of the relationship, but on the basis of the relationship itself, to the extent that it is the relationship itself that determines the elements on which it bears” My concern in this thesis is to study how power relations have been created and maintained during different time periods of Singapore’s history, within the framework of a governance that has been legitimated to control and manage the flow of urban water

One way of gaining an insight into governance in Singapore is to examine the way the state has discursively engaged the population within the narration of a successful water management system Through attempts at controlling and manipulating the flow of urban water, the state has also been constantly renegotiating its hegemonic position through an active process of discursive engagement within the society Over the years,

the legitimacy of the Singapore state has been discursively enacted through varying forms

of control In the early years after independence, more overt moralizing as a justification for punishment was associated with concerns for survival; this gradually shifted towards more internalized disciplining premised upon an ideological engagement of efficiency and possibilism This shift therefore imitates the type of change documented by Foucault

in early modern Europe; where control shifted from a system buttressed by punishment to one managed by surveillance and internalized self discipline (Foucault 1995) More recently there has been a further shift towards naturalizing a form of control by engaging the society in its capacity as consumers This mirrors the argument of Zygmunt Bauman who suggests that the ‘post-modern’ condition is one where persons as citizens are engaged by the state no longer as workers and producers, but instead as consumers (Bauman 2005) An “ethic” of work and discipline was gradually replaced by an aesthetic

of consumption; people are encouraged to cultivate “life-styles” and fulfill themselves through a constant pursuit of consumer desires

In newly independent Singapore the task of the state was to shape a Singapore population that embraced the notion of a ‘work ethic’ and hence embedded a moralistic understanding of work, so they would take pride in their capacity to work and partake in productive labor Bauman (2005:7-8) argues in regards to the creation of a workforce in industrial England during the 18th-19th centuries that, “the work ethic was, basically, about the surrender of freedom”, where “it was a power struggle in everything but name,

a battle to force the working people to accept, in the name of the ethical nobility of working life, a life neither noble nor responding to their own standards of moral decency” Much of the concern was about getting people to accept work as a moral responsibility, where they would feel compelled to place work before anything else The focus was on controlling the working population through constructing a paradigm where work was upheld as “the main factor of one’s social placement as well as of self assessment” (Bauman 2005:17) Control was enacted through overt means of engaging the public to accept a moralistic interpretation of what was supposed to be good for the self and for the larger society I argue that similar processes were apparent in post- colonial Singapore Additionally there was a moralistic engagement of the notion of

“cleanliness”, where the idea was propagated Singapore could only survive and progress

if the ‘brown’ issues of Singapore were dealt with through authoritarian measures

However, as pragmatism became more entrenched as the means of economic development within the popular imagination, increasingly the more punitive dimension of urban water management began to lose hold As illustrated by Foucault (1995:187), disciplinary power is largely “exercised through its invisibility; at the same time it imposes on those whom it subjects a principle of compulsory visibility In discipline, it is the subjects who have to be seen Their visibility assures the hold of the power that is exercised over them.” Complexities of power relations move beyond overt punishment towards making the population aware of their position within a larger framework This compels them to internalize control and discipline themselves Alongside the adoption of pragmatism and environmental possibilism, the political ecology in Singapore came to be focused on how water shortage could be overcome, and how the state’s urban water management system has could provide a clean, convenient and comfortable lifestyle With an increasing internalization of the developmentalist rhetoric, accepting the state’s management and long term integrated planning then appeared to be inevitable

This, however, does not provide adequate explanation of the continuing authoritarian governance of the Singapore state, albeit by softer means, in the twenty-first century With a shift towards a post-industrial economy, the focus has increasingly moved from industrial concerns towards a service dimension and knowledge formation in the global economy Accordingly, meanings of nature have also transformed, as urban water is also further entangled within the shifting complexities of the larger political economy, and has increasingly become more significantly consumed as lifestyle amenities; at the same time there have been technological developments to deal with various water related concerns The focus has shifted to getting people to regularize control as part and parcel of everyday life through engaging them as consumers who can aspire to an increasing quality of life Subsequently, a discourse of ecological modernization focussed on the successes of technological development within Singapore’s urban water management system towards the twenty-first century, and

became a key rhetoric of an increasingly technocratic state as part of legitimating its continual totalizing dominance over the flow of urban water within everyday life The emphasis has shifted towards a focus on the capacity to identify and construct the environment in a consumer-able form to satisfy the population as consumers The hegemony of the state has been further renewed, as lifestyle and ecological concerns came to be integrated and seen as inseparable from the planning of a strong and stable government

As Chua (1998:986) attests, “national economic growth becomes meaningful in the everyday life of its people when it translates into expansions and improvements of people’s material lives”; in this way there has been a shift to an inculcation of the values

of consumer culture, which has been supported by technological developments and has allowed the continued legitimacy of the state Parallel to Bauman’s (2005:22) argument, such development “has also shifted human motivation, and the craving for freedom, firmly and thus irretrievably into the sphere of consumption” Control is focussed on engaging the population as consumers, and getting them to internalize a belief in the state’s capacity to push for and allow continuous consumption Bauman (2005:26) further discusses the notion of desire and satisfaction in a ‘consumer society’, and he argues that

“to increase their capacity for consumption, consumers must never be given rest They need to be constantly exposed to new temptations in order to be kept in a state of a constantly seething, never wilting excitation and, indeed, in a state of suspicion and disaffection” The significance of consumption lies not in any end achieved by the process of consumption, but is in fact one that is significant within the very process itself, where meaningful engagements are being produced and reproduced within the perceptions of what can be attained

In this thesis, I argue that to gain an understanding of the contemporary flow of urban water, it has to be done in the context of consumer society As identified by Sutton (2004), there is a need to understand that consumption has also been ecologized However, this understanding needs to be further complemented by a broader understanding of the context of managing such consumption In the case of Singapore,

water management is predicated upon not just satisfying consumers but also shaping and aligning their desires with the state’s discourse Hence, there has been a softening rhetoric of the authoritarian state in the shift towards focusing on the aesthetic demands

of consumers; more importantly, there has been an emphasis on the ability of the technocratic state to construct water as a lifestyle (Bauman 2005) The significance of the controlling of urban water is construed in relation to the knowledge surrounding perceived scarcity instead of any absolute engagement of scarcity; thus it is important to understand how water scarcity has been constructed, engaged and manifested and how this matters to the power relations and controlling the flow of urban water Hence, a discourse analysis of urban water management is about studying why urban water has been managed as it is and the accorded implications of how it comes to be interpreted and understood within everyday life

1.4 Methodology: Discourse Analysis of Urban Water Management

1.4.1 Studying Discourses and Making Sense of Them

As Milton (1996:166) explains, an understanding of discourse can be seen as one where “knowledge is constituted through communication”, but it is also in particular about exploring how meanings are attributed within the process of communication within

a specific context Language is “both a social product of the faculty of speech and a collection of necessary contentions that have been adopted by a social body to permit individuals to exercise that faculty” (Saussure 1985:29) Continuing from this, discourse analysis is a critical engagement of how communication becomes meaningful within the formation of knowledge in the context of the social (Howarth and Stavrakakis 2000; Mills 2004; Potter 2004) In taking this into account, discourse analysis has also increasingly been adopted as an important method to study society

Studying discourses sociologically involves engaging the relevance of language, where meaningful knowledge is produced and sustained in relation to the dynamics of the society Foucault (1976:76) advocates a focus on studying discourses to understand society, and argues that:

Discourse and system produce each other – and conjointly – only at the crest of this immense reserve What are being analyzed here are certainly not the terminal states of discourse; they are the preterminal regularities in relation to which the ultimate state, far from constituting the birth-place of a system, is defined by its variants Behind the completed system, what is discovered by the analysis of formations is not the bubbling source of life itself, life in an as yet uncaptured state; it is an immense density of systematicities, a tight group of multiple relations…One remains within the dimension of discourse

Discourses are not simply an end product of any particular historical development, but are in themselves part and parcel of a concurrent social reality There is the need to be careful to take note that “discourse must not be referred to the distant presence of the origin, but treated as and when it occurs” (Foucault 1976:25) Discourses are also not just formed as a result of historical development, but are more dependent on how existing power relations have come to make use of history and to construe knowledge in supporting existing power relations (Foucault 1990; Moriaty 1991) Making sense of history in any totalizing manner is more often the attempt at restoring an epistemological balance of the contemporary subject, whereby one would come to believe that there is a natural and normally evolving truth to hold on to

Hence, the study of discourses goes beyond seeing them as depictions of any definite truth, and is about engaging discourses as part of the existing social reality Fundamentally, “a shared way of apprehending the world embedded in language, discourses construct meaning and relationship, helping to define common sense and legitimate knowledge” (Dryzek 2005:9) Presentations of discourses are inter-subjectively constituted, and what matters more is to engage how the discourses are produced, interpreted, and become meaningful within a particular context Instead of trying to claim any objectivity, the significance of an object of discourse is in fact the exploration of the inter-subjective relations that have come to formulate the object (Foucault 1976) Such an approach towards discourse analysis is thus not so much interested in discourses as specific interactions, but is focused more intricately “on how a discourse, or a ‘set of statements’, come to constitute objects and subjects” (Potter 2004:608)

Discourses are enacted as products of institutional and cultural forces which have come to shape the world that people in a society come to engage and understand (Dryfus and Rabinow 1984) In this sense, discourse analysis seeks to engage and study the discourses to uncover the formative relations behind them, and to explain the apparent taken-for-granted common sense of the everyday within the society As Jaworski and Coupland (2006:5) note, “discourse analysis offers a means of exposing or deconstructing the social practices that constitute ‘social structure’ and what one might call conventional meaning structures of social life” Eventually, discourses are meaningful in how they are interpreted and engaged, and not simply within the semantic of the language itself (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1984) With reference to C Wright Mills’s (1967) concept of the

‘sociological imagination’, Silverman (1993:75) states that “meaning never resides in a single term … and consequently understanding the articulation of elements is our primary task” for a sociological analysis of discourses The use of discourse analysis is thus an approach to sieve through the variances of the discourses, and identify the underlying logic behind the discursive structures that have come to dominate the construction of reality (Mills 2004)

1.4.2 Methods: Making Sense of the Managing of Water Resources in Singapore

This thesis adopts a discourse analysis approach to critically examine the water management system in Singapore, and to subsequently explore the relationship between society and the environment According to Howarth and Stavrakakis (2000:4), “discourse analysis refers to the practice of analyzing raw materials and information as discursive forms”; I will be looking at the discourses surrounding Singapore’s water management system, as a way of understanding the inter-subjectivity of the social system Instead of simply assuming that the claims of the state with regards to the management of urban water in Singapore are absolute or fixed, this thesis seeks to examine the dynamics of the discourses surrounding such claims to better understand the complexities involved within what Foucault (1995) identifies as the complex relationship between knowledge, power, and the consequent controlling and shaping of society In order to do so, this thesis is primarily based upon the analysis of archival data covering issues and concerns related to

the management of water resources by the state, from the time the dominating party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), came into power in 1959, up until 2009

The archival data involved in this thesis include various official texts and documents covering water management in Singapore, such as newspapers, newsletters, annual reports, special reports, government press releases, national reports, national blue-prints, national master-plans, project brochures and website content These materials are a rich source of data of how the state has dominated urban water in Singapore, as they are key representations of the state’s approach in managing its water resources As this study seeks to further explore and understand the relationship between power and knowledge within Singapore’s water management system, what is of interest to me are the discourses that have been adopted by the state, and more importantly, how they have been put forth and presented Most of the data originate from institutions such as the Public Utilities Board (PUB) of Singapore and the Ministry of Environment (ENV) (which was later renamed as the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources (MEWR)), as these are the key apparatuses of the state within the water management system in Singapore Thus, much of the analysis in this thesis is also closely focussed on the PUB and ENV/MEWR

The abovementioned archival materials provide this study with discourses associated with water management that were commonly adopted during varying time periods that I am focussing on in this thesis (Mautner 2008) A stringent and meticulous process was involved in the collecting, collating, organizing, coding and analyzing of these archival data (Mason 2002) In the earliest stage, collection of data was facilitated through the identification of where the discourses covering water management were located I systematically searched the newspaper archives for articles covering water related issues and concerns in Singapore This involved exploring various key search terms such as ‘water and Singapore’ and ‘water conservation and Singapore’ However,

in order to have a more comprehensive and encompassing coverage, there was also the need to understand the various indirect engagements of the water management system in Singapore This required a further understanding of the historical development of Singapore’s water management system, and the ways the state addressed water related

issues over the years In order to understand how the water management system has been discursively constructed, various official accounts of water management were identified for review These included the systematic review of various official documents, such as the MEWR and PUB’s annual reports and monthly newsletters, national blueprints, and national master-plans On top of the organizational accounts depicted in the official documents, further detailed accounts by governmental officials were also examined from governmental press releases

The collected materials provided an overview of the state’s accounts and statements of its actions towards water management Various additional search terms for news articles such as ‘public utilities’, ‘water catchment’, ‘water and wastage’, ‘water and international relations’, ‘NEWater’, ‘desalination’, ‘water cycle/ loop’ and so on were further identified The reviewing of official text and documents provided a substantial amount of data for analysis Together with the newspaper articles representing the water management system of Singapore, a substantive amount of data covering discourses surrounding Singapore’s water management system over the past four to five decades was available for analysis A systematic and organized manner of going through, sorting out and codification of the data was then critical to make sense of the extensive amount

of texts, pictures and diagrams This led to an identification of the main themes, directions, focuses and concerns that was highlighted in the discourses by the state throughout the years as it developed its water management system alongside its governance I actively focussed on the “little things” a style of analysis suggested by Flyvberg (2001: 133) to highlight the various ways the state addressed water related concerns; through these various bits and pieces the larger themes were subsequently identified, bringing to attention the manners through which urban water has been discursively constructed and engaged over the years

In attempting to understand and make sense of how discourses surrounding water management in Singapore have been organized since independence, I structure this thesis chronologically I divide my data and analysis into three main parts covering different periods: the 1960s and 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s, and the 2000s After collecting,

collating and organizing the data as such, I scrutinized and coded the data to identify the discourses involved during each period Finally, I organized the coded materials into a more integrated and holistic analysis of the discourses (Potter 2004) Although such a chronological approach might not be the most efficient manner, it was an effective way to better understand the development surrounding the discourses of water management over the years Through this understanding, it provides for a more holistic overview and understanding of the discursive management of the flow of urban water in Singapore and its socio-political significance

In addition to using archival data as a primary source of data, this study also uses multiple additional sources of data such as national and international statistics, involving information such as population size and growth, water sales, and national economic growth and developments to facilitate a broader and more in-depth context to better make sense of the water management system (Mason 2002) This information provided the contextual knowledge for actual water related events, and set up the background in which

to engage with the discourses; it helped to prevent the study from falling into a relativist trap where everything is seen as unsettling and ever-changing (Shapiro 2004) Finally, I also include reference to existing literature relating to the environment and water resource management as well as on the politics and environmental concerns affecting Singapore I follow Potter in feeling that it is important when engaging with texts and language within discourse analysis to be able to understand and relate to the necessary context in order to further understand the discourses (Potter 2004)

1.5 Outline of Chapters

In attempting to undertake a discourse analysis of Singapore’s urban water management system, Chapter 2 briefly traces the history of the introduction of a municipal system where urban water was first introduced under British colonial rule This included the development of modern piped water and sanitation systems, as well as the construction of reservoirs for local water run offs and purchased water from Malaysia

In Chapter 3 I discuss how the post colonial developmental state in the early years

of independence in the 1960s and 1970s attempted to shape a civilized, developed and obedient citizenry to accept its developmental plans The strategy of the post-colonial developmental state was to adopt a welcoming stance towards foreign investment, while further improving the utilities and infrastructure of Singapore to facilitate plans for industrialization and urbanization Hence, the ensuing developing of water supply became a crucial tool for such development Accordingly, a logic of pragmatism was constantly highlighted alongside the ideological engagement of Singapore’s position as a young, small, vulnerable country, lacking in natural resources The belief was perpetuated early on that in order to survive Singapore would need a government which adopted strong measures, which arguably often appeared paternalistic and autocratic Much of the water management during the 1960s and 1970s was largely centred on anti-pollution and urban renewal measures, and the city-state’s development was organized around stringent urban planning, population resettlement and social engineering

In Chapter 4 I explore the discourses surrounding water management of Singapore in the 1980s and 1990s In the 1980s, Singapore was becoming increasingly affluent and the earlier ideologies of vulnerability and survival were losing relevance The state thus had to move towards more subtle means of appealing to the public such as organizing water conservations campaigns and increasing water prices The state attempted to position its role as more supervisory, and to get people to internalize the state’s control as inevitably beneficial for the individual The logic of pragmatism was subsequently readapted, and efficiency became a dominant rhetoric as water management measures adopted by the state were premised upon maximizing water consumption and reducing water wastage through technical means, such as regulating the flow rate and conducting stringent checks for leakage By the 1990s, what was in place was the adoption of an ideology of environmental possibilism, where the ensuing development of additional water sources, alongside rhetoric of efficient management, was adopted to legitimate the developmental state’s persisting interference in much of everyday life Subsequently, the attempt at internalizing the relevance of the supervisory role of the state was furthered, at the same time as the global discourse of sustainable development

was also adopted and engaged accordingly to fit within the country’s developmental agenda The discourse of sustainable development justified the state’s action as being a necessary step for the country’s current and future well-being

Chapter 5 then examines the positioning of the power dynamics of a technocratic state moving towards and into the twenty-first century, where the focus was on developing alternate sources of water supply through technological research and development The ideology of environmental possibilism was pushed to new heights as the state legitimated itself as a technocratic state; with claims by the state that Singapore would move beyond the constraints of the natural water cycle, there was a totalizing rhetoric of a “closed water-loop”, where urban water would be efficiently maximized The significance of the ideology of possibilism was further perpetuated with the adoption

of the discourse of ecological modernization, where technology was constructed as a way

to deal with environmental concerns, at the same time as furthering the country’s wider vested interests With this there was a softening of the state’s rhetoric surrounding water management, through the discourse of a lifestyle around water, embodied in the image of

a ‘City of Gardens and Water’ Urban water management now engages the population within the context of this new style of water control

Chapter Two

Urbanizing Water and Sanitation in Colonial Singapore

Singapore’s history as a British colony in the 1800s has had major impacts on much of the shaping of modern Singapore’s urban landscape The integrated system of piped water supplies and sewerage that has been so crucial to the formation and maintenance of urban living in present day Singapore can be associated with the introduction of the municipal systems during the colonial era The formation of urban water under the British administration is one that has largely been related to the attempt

to develop Singapore into a key trading port The development of the infrastructure for urban water supply has been premised upon the context of providing potable water for the functioning and development of a colony Yet, such development is not merely an inevitable process, and has been one that is construed upon the discursive formation adhering to the British’s conceptions of urbanizing and civilizing its colonies Alternate understandings and engagements of water resources were deemed improper and primitive, with much contestation occurring amidst the formation of the country’s urban water during the colonial period (Yeoh 2003)

2.1 Developing Urban Water for a Colonial Municipal Town

Back before the British set foot on Singapore, local inhabitants numbered less than a thousand, and they were able to survive on water supply from the sources on the island (Turnbull 1977), and thus the local indigenous population existed within a sustainable relationship with their surrounding environment However, when the British East India Company colonized the small island in 1819, Singapore faced unprecedented changes that completely transformed life on the island Over the next two hundred years, the once sparsely populated island was transformed into a bustling port city in the nineteenth century, and later in the twentieth century was filled with migrants from all over the world; in the twenty-first century Singapore has become a first-world cosmopolitan city-state (Turnbull 2009) As Singapore opened up as a port city, the population expanded as migrants from various parts of the world came in search of employment in the flourishing trading industry It was in such context that a rapid process

of urbanization took place, most significantly in areas around the Singapore River where commerce and trading activities took place (Tregonning 1967)

Inevitably, the economic boom placed significant stress on the small island, and Singapore’s capacity to support the rapidly expanding population was pushed to its natural limit (Jayakumar 1988).6 Drinking water supply on the island was fast being outpaced by the escalating demand for water, and this was made worse by deteriorating sanitation and health care standards caused by overcrowding within the municipal town areas (Baker 2008:178).Yet, issues of urban planning and management of the municipal town under the British administration were not straightforward, as Singapore was then only an appendage of the East India Company and not a crown colony (Hallifax 1991) The implication of this was the dominance of autocratic governance, and persistence of highly inefficient bureaucracy, where priority was to reduce cost and maximize profit Amidst such organization, appropriate public works and efficient administration needed

to keep up with the fast expanding and thriving trading port were largely neglected (Turnbull 1977:68)

The political ecology of Singapore during the colonial period was one which shaped usage and control of natural resources and public utilities in favour of the British colonizers and the needs of the trading port over that of the non-British migrants and local population Even when government surveyor, J T Thomson proposed the construction of an improved water system to better the water supply in 1852, it was left unanswered due to lack of support and funding from the British East India Company (Yeoh 2003:177) The formative process of urban water was one caught up within the political web of the British administration On the one hand, the provision of potable water (especially for the growing urban population) was deemed essential to the

6

According to the historical analysis of water supply in colonial Singapore by Jayakumar (1988), wells were the main mode of water supply in Singapore in the 1800s With the expanding trading and shipping industry, private wells were started up to provide water supply to the trading vessels, and this was later supplemented by the opening of private reservoirs However, water supply to the local population was not privatized due to the prohibitive cost of building infrastructures and the lack of expectation of profitable returns from a poor local population It was only later towards the early 1900s that the demand rose to an extent that the reluctant British government had to step in to do something about it

development of the trading port; on the other hand, it was being impeded by the bureaucratic viscosity of the colonial system

2.2 Constructing and Contesting the Urban Water System

In 1857, a wealthy Chinese merchant, Tan Kim Seng, offered a donation of

$13,000 to fund the construction of Singapore’s first piped waterworks to transport

freshwater to the town (Singapore’s Water Supply 1985) Due to administrative

reluctance and bureaucratic viscosity, the first project of the waterworks, the Impounding Reservoir at Thomson Road, was completed only in 1868, with the pumps and distributing works taking another ten years to be finished (Yeoh 2003:178) However, the completion of such a project did not mean that water supply issues were resolved immediately, as problems of quality and quantity of the water supply remained contentious Ironically, a discursive construction that a clean and stable supply of drinking water was a key part of civilization and modernization was often undermined Water supply remained highly inefficient, and was not well received by the public as water distribution planning was poorly managed Water quality was often dubious with frequent complaints of the presence of suspicious sediments Furthermore, the urban water system was unequally skewed towards the advantage of the British households and the wealthy elites, and resulted in much disparity in terms of access to drinking water Additionally, there was not a universal understanding of the significance of piped water nor the usage of urban water

Hence the idea of clean piped water was not one that everyone on the island could relate to The discourse of urban water as a modern and clean source of water was not commonly accepted during the colonial period, and was highly contested by the island’s varying occupants This water issue was complicated by the fact that most inhabitants on the island were used to getting water for free from self-dug wells, and were wary against paying for piped water (Jayakumar 1988).7 There were also contentions over the fact that

public standpipes were not always necessarily located in close proximity to where people stayed, and additional cost was incurred from the need to pay water-carriers to transport

the piped water (Yesterday and Today, 1985; Yeoh 2003:185)

However, the fundamental issue of a rapidly expanding population concentrated within the municipal town area resulted in greater demand for drinking water and public sanitation The situation was further intensified by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869,

as Singapore’s position as a strategic trading port was brought to new heights and “the economic life of all the islands, with the exception of Java, was focused upon Singapore” (Tregonning 1972:87) In order to meet the increasing demand of the growing population, the embankment of the Thomson Road reservoir was raised by 1.5 meters in 1905 to expand its storing capacity The water supply was further reinforced by the construction

of the Kallang River Reservoir in 1910, a project spearheaded by Robert Pierce, the Municipal Engineer.8 Despite such additions, the problem of water scarcity remained a persisting reality, as the attempts to increase water sources were unable to keep up with the escalating demands that has been created and identified as a crucial component for the colony.9 Eventually, the island’s inability to sustain the burgeoning urban population with sufficient clean water supplies pushed for the sourcing of alternative water sources which led to the beginning of a long and often contentious water relationship between Singapore and Malaysia (Lee 2005)

2.3 Dealing with Water and Sanitation for an Expanding Population

Besides the need to deal with supplying water to the municipal town, the other crucial concern was sanitation and public health concerns (Tan et al 2008) With the rapid population boom and subsequent urbanization, issues of public health were also fast wells or dig new ones (Yeoh 2003:183-186) At the same time, despite the claims of contaminated wells, the water system during the 1910s remained largely inefficient and sanitation problems persisted to make matters worse (Jayakumar 1988)

wash-becoming a problem for Singapore Up till the 1880s, human waste disposal were manually handled, with Chinese syndicates taking charge of the night-soil business, going about at night using wooden buckets to transport human waste from the municipal town to gardens and plantations to be used as fertilizers (Yeoh 2003:190) However, such

a system soon became unsustainable as the population in Singapore was expanding too rapidly and there were not enough agricultural or plantation spaces within Singapore to absorb the night-soil Furthermore, the cramping of excessive migrant workers into housing in the municipal town, the massive production of human waste, together with an inappropriate sanitation system and insufficient clearing mechanism, resulted in a filthy environment of cesspools, waste piles and pungent waste smell that was becoming a breeding ground for diseases such as typhoid and enteric fever (Yeoh 2003; Tan et al 2008) Public health was becoming a serious issue that was in dire need of a proper and adequate system of waste disposal

In 1890, James MacRitchie, a municipal engineer, made a proposal to improve the waste disposal system and suggested that an improvised pail system would be the best

solution (Singapore’s Water Supply 1985) However, other than some minor attempts to

prevent accumulation of cesspits through the replacement of privies with movable buckets that was supposed to facilitate the waste disposal process, nothing else was actually done until the end of the first decade of the twentieth century Concerns of sanitation and public health remained highly contentious, and were increasingly creating more problems for the British administration Finally, because of the public health issues that were accumulating and the growing autonomy of the Chinese syndicates who were able to extort the European residents with their capacity as waste disposers, the municipal commissioners decided that something had to be done about the sewerage system (Yeoh 2003)

In 1906, Professor W.J Simpson submitted a report advocating an automated sewerage system, and in 1911, Robert Pierce submitted another proposal to construct an underground pipe sewerage system that would create a water-borne sewerage system (Hallifax 1991) By 1917, the first sewerage system was completed with the Alexander

Road Sewerage Disposal Works collecting, treating and disposing of waste in the municipal areas However, progress remained slow and by 1920, only about two percent

of houses in the municipal area were connected to the sewerage system (Yeoh 2003) The pail system remained the key means of waste disposal and was only phased out completely on 24 January 1987 (Tan et al 2008) Additional pumps and sewerages were built later on, but were slowed down by the Second World War (WWII) After the war, sewerage works resumed, and in order to deal with the demands of the growing population, the Ulu Pandan Treatment Works was completed in 1961 to replace the Alexandra Sewerage Disposal Works By 1985, more sewerage treatment works in Bedok, Kranji, Seletar and Jurong were built to handle the waste disposals of the different estates springing up around Singapore Even though apparent inefficiency and ineffectiveness dominated the early sewerage system, it was nonetheless the precedent for Singapore’s integrated sewerage system, from which the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System (DTSS) was later developed, and this facilitated Singapore’s waste disposal and waste water recycling efforts that were developed later.10

2.4 The Beginning of Singapore’s Water Relationship with Malaysia

The significance of Singapore as a key strategic trading port of the British had also allowed the island-state to successfully obtain part of its water supply from Malaysia, and this has significantly shaped the consequent development of Singapore’s water management system In 1912, in the hope of sourcing for potential water supply from Malaysia, R Pierce conducted a preliminary examination of the Pulai district in Johore In 1920, S.G Williams, a water engineer, obtained permission from the Johore government to explore the possibility of drawing freshwater supplies from the Gunong

Pulai area (Singapore’s Water Supply 1985) An agreement between the Sultan of Johore

and the municipal commissioners of Singapore was signed on 5 December 1927, marking the beginning of one of Singapore’s most crucial relationships with Malaysia.11

Subsequently, the Gunong Pulai Scheme was taken up, and was completed on December

1929 with the construction of the Sultan Ibrahim Reservoir which was later joined by the Pontian Kechil Reservoir, and was completed in 1931 to provide Singapore with a combined total daily supply of 15.5 million gallons of freshwater (Yeoh 2003:181) These two reservoirs that were built under the British administration were the origins of the water relationship between Singapore and Malaysia as Singapore has since been getting the bulk of its water supplies from Johore Yet, at the same time, this relationship has also been a major source of contention between the two countries over the years (Lee 2005; Kog 2001)

In order to accommodate water supply from Malaysia, the Fort Canning Service Reservoir, with a holding capacity of 30 million gallons, was completed in 1928

(Singapore’s Water Supply 1985) In 1940, Seletar Reservoir was built and joined the ranks of Singapore’s reservoirs (Water Department 1982) However, plans to further

expand water draw-offs from the Johore River Scheme were obstructed by WWII (Lee 1994; Warren 2002) During WWII, due to inappropriate war strategies and the lack of leadership, the British were defeated by the Japanese troops that swiftly swept through Malaya (Turnbull 1977:175) By the time the Japanese landed on the northwest coast of Singapore on 8February 1942, they had already cut off Singapore’s water supply from Johore (Lee 1994) Eventually, the Japanese troops took full control of Singapore’s water supplies as they occupied the reservoirs in Singapore on 14 February 1942 However, water supply from the reservoirs was not cut off as the Japanese army was cautious of the possible problems with reinstating the water supply which had already been disrupted due

to the prior bombings (Warren 2002).The subsequent lack of water and sanitation further complicated the war situation as perceptions of looming epidemics threatened to make matters worse amidst the fighting (Warren 2002; Turnbull 1977) Eventually, with the dwindling water supply, threat of massive casualties, lack of ammunition and inappropriate war strategies, the British surrendered Singapore to the Japanese on 15 February 1942 (Lee 1994)

After the Japanese surrendered and left Singapore in 1945, plans to enhance Singapore’s waterworks projects in Johore soon resumed Eventually, to deal with the increasing demand for water in Singapore, a new source of supply at the Tebrau River

was chosen, with the construction being completed in January 1953 (Water Department 1982) Involved in this project was the construction of a steel pipeline which extended

from Singapore over the Johore Straits through the Johore Bahru Town to the Tebrau

River (Singapore’s Water Supply 1985)

2.5 Making Sense of the Colonial Implications

Colonialism had undeniably affected the subsequent development of Singapore, and as Goh (2008:260) puts forth within the realm of postcolonial studies, “the question

is how the momentum of history and culture established by colonialism has driven the trajectory of the post-colonial nation into the age of neoliberal empire” The British presence in Singapore sparked significant social and political changes with subsequent impositions of the colonizer’s belief systems of public health and hygiene alongside their municipal planning and management Under the British administration, massive changes were induced as Singapore rapidly flourished and urbanized through the trading industry Western standards of aesthetics, lifestyle, health beliefs, science and technology were subsequently introduced and imposed upon the island Urban water has been discursively constructed as a main source of drinking water, whereby piped water under a centralized system was noted to be a marker of the colony’s progression and development The result was a subversion of the prior notion of the surrounding natural environment of the colonized, and the introduction of the colonizer’s construction of the environment (Yeoh 2003)

Alongside the introduction of the colonizer’s urbanized conceptualization of the environment, what took place was the institutionalization of the ‘natural’ environment of the colonized community by the post-colonial developmental state (Perry et al 1997; Dobbs 2003; Yeoh 2003) In choosing to adopt certain logic set forth by the colonial municipal administration, the management and control of public utilities was then consolidated under a centralized state administration Singapore was thus able to further

expand, industrialize and urbanize accordingly, and has continued to do so after the British left (Drysdale 1984; Chua 2008) Building on the water system started by the British Municipal Government, the developmental state has further expanded the institutionalization of the water system to create the appropriate environment to rapidly develop Singapore Urban planning alongside utilities management was set in place where large numbers of high-rise public housing were built to reorganize the country’s population, and industrial infrastructures were constructed to attract foreign investments (Rodan 2006) Subsequently, this set forth a snowballing effect which has led to the context of the present day integrated water management system

This however is not to argue that there was a linear or straightforward physical enforcement by the colonizer on the colonized, or that the water system in contemporary Singapore is to be simply credited to the British colonizer It is important to note that the colonial influences were not simply homogenous effects; much of the population during the colonial period, especially those living outside the urban municipal town, actually retained much of their own ‘traditional’ knowledge and practices with regards to water and sanitation (Yeoh 2003) During the colonial period, the attempt at municipalizing the town’s water supply and sanitation facilities was not implemented overnight; there was also much resistance In light of what Chatterjee (1993) argues, though we cannot deny the influence or ignore the impacts of colonized presence, it does not simply mean that

we are doomed to a mere subjugation to the colonized version of social reality

Instead, the water management system that Singapore possesses today would be better understood as a negotiated process which has led to a subsequent context of accumulated knowledge formation affecting various aspects of the lived reality, such as the physical, social, political, cultural and even economical (Chua 2008) As Kong and Yeoh (1996:402) put forth, “nature has been constructed to satisfy human needs and purposes by colonial and post-colonial state agencies …(and) this vision of nature has been translated into policies which have resulted in different material forms.” Even though the cornerstone of water development in Singapore was largely related to British colonialism, to better understand the relationship between the society and its environment

would require deeper understanding and engagement of the discursive intricacies surrounding water politics in post-colonial Singapore There is a need to understand how the developmental state in post-colonial Singapore has come to adopt the water system, and discursively engaged such a system to facilitate its governance and shape the social, political and economic significance of water over the years

an essential tool of development, and the discourse of urban water management became

an important tool with which the “developmental state” constructed ideas about cleanliness and discipline in the earlier years of Singapore’s independence

3.1 Industrialization and Urbanization: Constructing Public Utilities as Resources

The Public Utilities Board (PUB) of Singapore was formed in May 1963 to take over the responsibilities of providing water, electricity and piped gas from the City Council under the British administration.12 In terms of managing urban water, PUB became an important and strategic national institution, not just because there were limited water sources in Singapore, but because of the subsequent values that were attributed to urban water by the post-colonial developmental state.13 A main concern of the People’s Action Party (PAP), the single dominant party of Singapore’s government when they came into office in 1959, was to stabilize its position and to develop the country’s economy Water was a key resource for Singapore as it was a necessary resource for basic human survival, and it was also a crucial resource for the country’s economic development Within this context, the management of urban water was an essential component of the post-colonial developmental state’s attempt at managing and developing Singapore

12

PUB was formed under the Prime-Minister’s Office and was given the task of managing the public utility services for Singapore as the country embarked on a process of decolonization (Singapore PUB Annual Report 1963).

13

PUB noted that the role of its Water Department was to “maintain its steady progress and certain capital projects were undertaken in order to cope with the increased demand for water both from the domestic and the industrial sector” (Singapore PUB Annual Report 1963:17) This marked the institutionalization of water as a resource for public utilities, as well as national economic development in the Republic of Singapore

Towards the 1960s, the possibility of a mounting unemployment rate arising from the impending increase in the working population due to the post-war baby boom of the late 1940s was noted by the government to be a potentially serious problem for Singapore (Drysdale 1984) The young government had to find means to deal with this issue alongside the potential economic void that could worsen with the exit of the British Administration Industrialization was proposed as the ‘indispensable’ move for the country to develop and alleviate potential unemployment problems (Milne and Mauzy 1990; Turnbull 2009).14 With the consultation of Dutch economist Dr Albert Winsemius,

the State of Singapore Development Report 1961-1964, a four year development plan,

was produced by Finance Minister, Goh Keng Swee (Turnbull 2009).15 The development plan sought to push industrialization and urbanization through the building of “a large industrial estate… in Jurong for an iron and steel plant” alongside removal of squatters and the ensuing organizing of the population within the available land-space (Drysdale 1984:255) The report further wrote that the situation in Singapore, with “a very good port, financial institutions, good power and water supply and good communication services – can be developed to service industrial development”.16 It was also identified that one of the foremost “government’s contribution [that can be made] to industrial development… is to provide adequate supply of cheap power and water”.17 The ability to provide cheap power and water supply allowed for rapid industrialization and massive urbanization, but such progress also meant that the country’s demand of water resources was concertedly pushed up

14

The PAP had envisaged a “commodity common market – a pan-Malayan market for mutually agreed commodities” which was deemed necessary to support Singapore’s proposed program for industrialization (Drysdale 1984:253)

15

In the report, it noted population growth to be potentially problematic as the country’s population was expanding at an average annual increase of 4.3% per year between 1947 and 1957 Population control was deemed a necessary long term solution at that point of time, but what was more pressing for the

government was to deal with the existing economic and social problems of the post-war population boom Employment was seen as an urgent issue to be dealt with, alongside much needed social services such as housing, education and health With the population boom and the plan to embark on industrialization, further urbanization of a national scale was also inevitable On top of the existing entrepot trade, the report suggested industrialization as a necessary step for Singapore to provide its population with increased employment opportunities, and that the government would have to take charge of starting up this process

16

State of Singapore Development Plan 1961-1964 1961:16

17

Ibid