The Bandung office of the Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD) has called for relaxation of provincial controls on groundwater permits for new hotels to facilitate economic growth.
Data shows that around 60 percent of Bandung's city area is facing a potable water supply crisis due to a fall of up to 86 meters in the depth of the groundwater table since 2007.
BPLHD head Nana Supriatna has concluded that West Java gubernatorial ordinance No. 31/2006 on groundwater management is restricting the city's economic growth because the regulation requires that every business seeking to pump water from 100 meters or more below ground must have a permit.
As a result up to 12 permits for new hotels in Bandung are pending and the hotels could be deprived of this water source.
"They are equipped with building and business permits, but encumbered by the need for groundwater procurement permits despite the feasibility of the hotel and tourism industry in Bandung at the present time," Nana said on the sidelines of a coordinating meeting on water management in the Bandung river basin area led by West Java Governor Danny Setiawan on Monday.
Nana added that four completed hotels, the Novotel, Majesty and Hilton among them, were forced to build costly water tanks and to obtain supplies from other areas. He said businesspeople would be disadvantaged by obtaining their water supplies from the PDAM state water utility, which charges high rates reaching up to Rp 12,000 (approximately US$1.30) per cubic meter for the business sector.
Daily water demand for the hotel and tourism industry in Bandung, according to Nana, amounts to at least 250 cubic meters per day per hotel, while the city consumes 50,000 cubic meters of water daily, half of which comes from shallow wells.
Nearly half of the city's residents are experiencing water shortages due to the impact of the declining water table level on shallow wells, now affecting 60 percent of the total city area.
He said areas that could no longer be used to build large and water consuming buildings included Buah Batu, Kosambi, Cipaganti, Pasir Kaliki, the worst-affected being Suryani Dalam, along Jl. Sudirman, where residents fail to get water despite drilling as deep as 80 meters.
"This is apparently contradictory, but in any case there should be a way out to improve the economy and save groundwater as well," Nana said.
He called on the governor to revise the ordinance by facilitating groundwater procurement permits for the hotel and tourism industry conditionally, such as requiring the businesses to build biopores as deep as the required groundwater wells.
The proposal, however, may be difficult to realize. Governor Danny said he would revise the ordinance by implementing the reward and fine system, in which cities and regencies that can conserve groundwater would be provided with incentives from the provincial budget, while imposing fines on those deemed wasteful.
"We will also charge progressive fees according to water consumption," Danny said.
