The city administration and the Public Housing Ministry will form a management board to maintain the East Flood Canal after it is fully functioning.
“The management board will cooperate with the Public Housing Ministry to handle technical and social aspects,” Governor Fauzi Bowo said Wednesday.
He said the technical aspect includes the volume of garbage, while the social aspect includes nearby resident activity and illegal buildings.
Chief of the Ciliwung-Cisadane Flood Bureau at the ministry Pitoyo Subandrio said the management board would consist of officials from his bureau who would operate the water gates and subdistrict chiefs.
“The canal passes 13 subdistricts and the chiefs will guard the canal, making it free of street vendor activity such as people selling food,” he told The Jakarta Post.
He said he received approval from Vice President Boediono during an aerial inspection on the canal’s construction, West Flood Canal, in West Jakarta, and Situ Gintung Dam in Tangerang, on Wednesday.
The governor also attended the inspection.
Pitoyo said the city and the government should collaborate to prevent the deterioration of the canal such as Cakung Drain, West Jakarta, where houses were closely located.
The 23.5-kilometer canal, which reached the sea at the end of last year, is supposed to regulate water from six major rivers, Cipinang, Sunter, Buaran, Jatikramat, Cakung and Blencong.
Pitoyo said that the governor wanted to wait for rain to help clean the dark polluted rain water in Cipinang River to the sea before opening the dam.
“Cipinang River water is contaminated by waste disposal from factories, while water from the canal is clean.
“We will wait for three of four occasions of heavy rain,” he said.
He said the dam would open sometime in January before areas along Cipinang River flood.
Some sections, such as at Sunter River, Pahlawan Revolusi Bridge, Pondok Kopi, Rawa Bebek and Marunda in North Jakarta, were 15 meters wide, from the targeted 75 meters.
The city and the central government are also gearing up to dredge 13 main rivers, another huge-budget flood mitigation project financed by the World Bank under a program called the Jakarta Emergency Dredging Initiative (JEDI).
The director-general for debt management at the Finance Ministry, Rahmat Waluyanto, recently said the World Bank had offered US$135.5 million in loans in the first quarter of 2010 for flood control through JEDI.
He said the city administration would receive $56.4 million.
The city’s Public Works Agency plans to use the first disbursement of the World Bank loan to dredge a dam and two rivers in May.
Fahrurrazi, head of the agency’s water resources management, said his agency would dig up Melati Dam in Central Jakarta, and deepen Ciliwung and Sentiong rivers.
He said the Ciliwung-Cisadane Flood Bureau would work on two areas — Cengkareng Drain in West Jakarta, and Sunter River in North Jakarta.
Currently, the agency is holding a tender for the project’s design.
The city is also considering the possibility of building a wall along the city’s coast to combat the rising sea level.
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