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483 years of Jakarta: Water crisis
According to government official data, the Jakarta groundwater condition now is very severe
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ccording to government official data, the Jakarta groundwater condition now is very severe. It is estimated, that in the next 15 years, Jakarta will have a water crisis if there is no breakthrough to handle the issue.
The industrial area in West Jakarta has already entered a very critical point today. It is recommended the central government immediately conserve the ground water areas in Jakarta, West Java, and Banten in order to improve the ground water basin areas of Jakarta. (Tempo.interaktif , Feb. 3, 2010)
This June, on Jakarta’s 483rd anniversary, the clean water issue remains an unsolved problem.
Although it has been privatized by allowing the foreign partner of the Regional Water Company (PDAM Jaya), a clean water supply to residents is often clogged, and sometimes completely freezes.
Ironically, Jakarta is a very rich water resource area. There are many large rivers here. As a low land area, groundwater can be obtained without the need to dig too deep.
Beside, Java’s water reserves, in fact, are not greatly used by residences. However, the rivers are heavily polluted.
Water needed for Jakarta mainly comes from two sources, namely rivers and wells. Although the total population is numbered “fantastic”, from a quantitative aspect, water availability in Jakarta should not be a problem.
But exploitation of ground water by large buildings induced severe consequences with a serious decline in ground water levels. Additionally, there is a 15 kilometer distance to infiltrate seawater to downtown.
According to some studies, the number of city dwellers who have access to clean water, is only about 6-15 percent.
Unless the city government makes drastic policies, pollution from industrial waste will increase fivefold by 2020. A large amount of pollution is also caused by the wastewater tertiary sector, particularly household waste.
Every day, tons of garbage washed into the river makes it a “paradise” for many kinds of bacteria. The collie bacterial content is a thousand times beyond the level prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Moreover, this content also breaks into ground water and is ready to become a time bomb.
Of all Jakarta residents, only less than 15 percent have access to water taps in their homes.
Meanwhile, a quarter of the people in Jakarta purchase bottled water or from sellers of channel water in residential areas.
The rest obtain it by using artesian well water. Because of weak law enforcement, many factories and industries do not comply with regulations on the use of filters and clarification plants to clean up toxic waste. It is usually dumped into rivers and the sea in the Greater Jakarta area.
Waste water cleaning technology, in fact, has been developed from domestic or foreign countries at a relatively affordable price.
Inevitably, water as a public good, should be provided by the government for the population, including through subsidies for people living in poverty.
Therefore, the tendency to make water a commodity of the free market as applied in Indonesia today, should be scrutinized, because usually only minority will benefit.
The demands of the People’s Coalition for the Right to Water to allow the government to take control of water management in Jakarta, no longer leaving it to the private sector, is worthy of consideratio (www.kruha.org). Hopefully.
The writer is the city planner and executive director of the Indonesian Institute for Democracy in Education, and co-chief editor of the Journal of Social Democracy.
