Local treatment suggested for sewage

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 09/26/2006 9:25 AM | Jakarta

If nothing is done by 2014, Jakarta streets will be gridlocked in cars and the city's groundwater will be indistinguishable from raw sewage, experts say.

But with a relatively small investment, setting up small-scale community sewerage treatment plants can prevent this, they suggest.

The city has only one proper sewerage treatment plant that serves a part of the main business district, while other residents make do with septic tanks or makeshift latrines in slums.

""The most feasible option for densely populated city settlement areas is to build a sewerage treatment system under the streets,"" World Bank senior water supply and sanitation specialist Alfred Lambertus said Monday.

In areas where households have septic tanks, all that has to be done is to connect them to the underground system, he said.

Meanwhile in slums, additional public toilets should be built in available lots.

""The (treatment) equipment costs between Rp 250 million and Rp 300 million (about US$27,000-32,000) to serve a population of 100 families,"" Lambertus said.

""That excludes the cost of land. And that is why it is better to use state-owned land.""

The communal sanitation system, which consists of house connections, a sewerage pipe network and an aerobic sewerage treatment plant, has been adopted in 14 urban areas in Bali and Java. Jakarta has yet to implement such a pilot project.

Currently, only around 2 percent of the city's waste water is treated properly -- everything else runs through the roughly one million septic tanks that handle ""black"", or flushed, water.

The Jakarta Environmental Management Agency said about 80 percent of the city's groundwater sources were unsafe to drink.

All Jakarta's rivers are heavily polluted by household and inductrial waste.

Health Ministry data shows that 50 of every 1,000 babies born in the city die of diarrheal diseases, often caused by drinking water polluted with fecal matter.

Development economist Guy Hutton said infrastructure problems and housing density in urban areas made it difficult to clean up water.

""The really important issue is to stop the environmental pollution somehow. There are various ways of collecting and treating water, whether it is a decentralized system or centrally collected,"" Hutton said.

Lambertus said in crowded areas, communal sewerage systems could be divided into several small underground plants.

""The initial investment should be the government's responsibility, but its maintenance could later on be handed over to the community or to the private sector, so long as it is made economically feasible,"" he said.

He highlighted the importance of community involvement in setting up the infrastructure.

""We need a demand-responsive approach, building only for those who need and show an interest in a system,"" Lambertus said. ""If not, the facility will only be abandoned and unkept.""

-- JP/Anissa S. Febrina

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