SINGAPORE began adding recycled sewage water to its reservoirs in a step aimed at weaning itself off dependence on neighbouring Malaysia.

Singapore, which relies on the Malaysian state of Johor for half of its water supply, said its drinking water would now include one per cent of what city planners call NEWater, or recycled waste from air-conditioners, sinks and toilets.

The amount, equal to two million gallons a day (nine million litres), would rise steadily. By 2011, about 2.5 per cent of all tap water in the resource-starved island state would include NEWater.

“Recognizing that Singapore has limited natural water resources, we are taking measures now to ensure that future generations of Singaporeans will never be short of drinking water,” Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said in a speech.

Turning the tap on NEWater follows an increasingly bitter dispute between Singapore and Malaysia over the price Singaporeans pay for water under two agreements dated before the two countries separated in 1965.

By 2061, when one agreement expires, Singapore could be completely self-sufficient in water. “We can be totally self-sufficient, if there is no new water agreement with Malaysia,” said Goh.

Singapore, which already uses NEWater for industrial use, gets nearly half of its drinking water from catchment areas designed to preserve almost every drop of rain. The rest is piped from Johor at a price of three Malaysian cents per 1,000 gallons of raw water — a figure Kuala Lumpur initially said it wanted to raise 100-fold although it has since revised the offer.

Acrimony between the neighbours, who are also arguing over a tiny rocky islet located strategically in the Singapore and Malacca straits, has grown progressively testier in recent months despite strong social, security and economic bonds.

To speed its self-sufficiency, Singapore has awarded contracts for the supply of desalinated sea water and is expanding its water catchment areas to cover two-thirds of the island by 2012.— Samina Iqbal