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Jakarta Post

Micro sewage plants to curb pollution

The Jakarta Environmental Management Board (BPLHD) recently announced plans to build waste water treatment plants for households at three locations in a pilot project to reduce groundwater pollution

Tifa Asrianti (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, August 20, 2008

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Micro sewage plants to curb pollution

The Jakarta Environmental Management Board (BPLHD) recently announced plans to build waste water treatment plants for households at three locations in a pilot project to reduce groundwater pollution.

Budirama Natakusumah, head of the board, said his office were planning to build plants in West, North and East Jakarta.

Communities in these locations agreed to support the project by helping to run and maintain the plants, Budirama said.

"We'll build waste water canals joining toilets and bathrooms to collective sewers under roads, which will lead to the treatment plants. Once the water has been treated, it will be channeled into rivers," he said.

Budirama said once the treatment plants were complete, the daily supervision and maintenance would be left in the hands of the communities.

Each plant would require only around 25 watts of electricity to power a blower machine, he said.

"We are trying to make several. For example, we'll make one plant for 30 houses. We hope other communities will follow our example, and one day we can provide every household with an alternative to septic tanks."

Most houses in Jakarta have both septic tanks and groundwater wells in the same plot of land. With septic tanks channeling wastewater into the ground, the groundwater becomes contaminated with bacteria which can cause waterborne diseases, such as diarrhea, typhoid, leptospirosis and polio.

So far this year (to mid August), some 7,400 cases of diarrhea among Jakarta residents have been recorded by the Health Agency. This figure comprised 2,338 cases in East Jakarta, 1,478 in North Jakarta, 1,462 in West Jakarta, 1,148 in Central Jakarta and 999 in South Jakarta.

According to the agency, over the last five years the annual total has never been below 20,000. In 2007, the agency recorded 26,040 cases, 20,132 in 2006, and 23,136 in 2005.

"We're educating the community and housing developers about the importance of such plants. And we are focussing on areas where the most diarrhea cases are recorded.

"Next year, we will encourage developers to build one plant for each new housing project," Budirama said.

According to an earlier report from the National Statistics Agency, toilet waste from 17.71 percent of Jakarta households went straight into open-air water courses including lakes, rivers and the ocean -- becoming the main source of heavy pollution in the 13 rivers which cross the city.

The water in these 13 rivers is currently untreatable for use as tap water.

To solve the sanitation problem, Governor Fauzi Bowo had previously said the city administration would build a communal sanitary facility in each neighborhood unit.

"With these facilities, we expect Jakarta residents to adopt a cleaner and healthier lifestyle. We also urge all district and subdistrict heads to remove 'hanging toilets' from rivers," Fauzi said.

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