Cash and carry: Four women stand in an alley, waiting for their buckets to fill up with water in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, on Tuesday. Residents in the area have to buy clean water from water vendors due to the absence of reliable tap water. (JP/Hasyim Widhiarto)

As clean water is scarce in coastal areas in North Jakarta, residents have no choice but to do almost anything to get it.

Pariyah, 30, a resident from community unit (RW) 12 in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, said she had to buy clean water from vendors for her family's daily activities.

"Everyday, I need at least 12 jerricans of clean water to wash clothes, cook and for drinking," Pariyah, who lives with 14 relatives in a two-story house with a corrugated steel roof, told The Jakarta Post recently.

"I have to spend between Rp 150,000 (US$12.60) and Rp 200,000 each month for clean water."

Pariyah, whose father and husband work as pedicab driver, said spending money on water had become an inevitable burden for her poor family.

"My father and my husband only get money if they work.

"If they don't have any money, I usually skip washing the clothes to save clean water," said Pariyah, who has spent all her life in the area.

Darsih, another resident, said she bought clean water from vendors for washing.

"For cooking and drinking, I prefer to buy refilled mineral water," said the 48-year-old mother, adding that she usually spent Rp 60,000 per month on water.

Living near the city's coastline, Penjaringan residents have a long-standing problem of access to clean water.

The residents used to rely on shallow groundwater, but they stopped using it because many wells turned salty due to seawater intrusion and industrial waste contamination.

"It is almost impossible to get clean water from groundwater wells around here," said Cahyono, another resident.

"Several years ago, the city administration gave us a hydrant, but the water is still salty and looks murky, even though we dug 210 meters below the ground level," he said.

Residents face more difficulties now as many coastal areas have no access to tap water.

Only 34 percent of 1,300 families living in RW 12 are part of the tap water system run by PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja).

Almost all residents in the area have ended up buying water from vendors, paying Rp 1,500 for six jerricans, or 120 liters. Residents store the clean water in dozens of jerricans in front of their houses.

Some residents who live near the main alley channel water from nearest pipe hydrants, owned by several residents, to their buckets using hoses.

They pay hydrant owners Rp 5,000 for a 30-minute service.

But, expenditures for water continue to add up.

While vendors have already allocated water for washing and cooking, residents still have to shove deeper into their pockets to pay for toilets and bathing.

"We have to go to public bathhouse to take a bath," said Pariyah, whose house has no toilet, like many residents in the neighborhood.

"We pay Rp 500 or Rp 1,000 per visit, depending on how maintained the bathhouse is," she added.

Vincent Hermanus Pooroe, an activist with US-based NGO Mercy Corps, said people living coastal areas in Jakarta had to allocate significant portions of their income to buy clean water.

"Almost all residents in Penjaringan work as seasonal workers who rely on daily incomes," said Vincent, who has been assisting Penjaringan residents as part of the NGO's water supply program.

"It is strange, poor people have to spend money on clean water, more than the money spent by wealthy families living in other areas of the city," he said.

"Some of the poorest families in the area even collect rainwater so they can save on water expenses," Vincent said, adding that the average income of a family ranged between Rp 1.6 million and Rp 1.7 million per month.

In 1998, city tap water company PAM Jaya signed contracts with private tap water operators from France and the United Kingdom to ensure the city's water supply, with distribution expansion as one of the terms in the contract.

PAM Jaya plans to expand its networks north over the next four years and grant all city residents access to pipe water by 2020.

The existing pipe water installation at Penjaringan is not reliable.

"Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't," said Supriyanto, 48, a resident who lives in a low-cost apartment in Penjaringan.

"The water often comes out after midnight for around two hours only," said the father of two, who has been living in the apartment since 1997.

Tarman, head of the community unit, said his residents would continue to rely on water vendors and public bathhouses because they refused to spend much money on installing unreliable pipe water.

"Installing pipe water is considered expensive by many people here," he said.

"Moreover, a number of residents make money by providing services to deliver clean water to other residents." (hwa)

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