B

ekasi, an industrial city that hosts thousands of factories, has a serious water pollution problem.

About 80 percent of raw water distributed by local water company PDAM Tirta Patriot comes from the polluted Bekasi River, causing frequent disruptions to tap water supplies.

In March, the river was filled with foam that was as white as snow, the perpetrators of which are still unknown, while in January, the color of the river became a blackish green, causing several residents to suffer itchiness because their tap water was also affected.

Two weeks ago, the color of the river turned black and emitted an unpleasant smell.

PDAM Tirta Patriot technical director Cecep Ahmadi said each time a section of the river was contaminated, the company would stop production.

“Our production will stop if the source of raw water is polluted with hazardous and toxic waste,” Cecep said over the weekend.

Each time contamination is reported, production is stopped for nine hours from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. but the company still runs limited distribution using water storage.

Cecep claimed that even though such contamination had occurred many times, turning the river various colors, from white to black, blue or grey, leaving dead fish floating on the surface, it only lasted for a day.

With around 1,400 factories in the city, 18 of which are located near Bekasi River, the city administration is yet to devise an effective mechanism to prevent the contamination of the past decade.

Before operating, factories are inspected to ascertain whether a wastewater treatment plant has been installed. They are also required to create a document called an environmental management scheme and environmental monitoring scheme (UKL-UPL), said Bekasi Environment Agency head Jumhana Luthfi.

“But then, the problem lays in the implementation. Factories also need to send a report [on waste management] to us every semester but they probably just report the good things,” Luthfi said, admitting that the agency was still unable to check the validity of every report.

Oftentimes, he said the administration faced difficulties finding out which company disposed of their waste into the river because they were unable to prove it.

“I asked the Bekasi mayor to provide waste-monitoring sumps in every factory in the city last week,” said Luthfi.

The sump will automatically be filled with liquid waste produced by a factory, which can be taken directly by the agency to be used as a sample to match with waste found polluting the river.

If the sump-monitoring runs well, the agency will have incontestable evidence to close down a factory. At present, the agency is only able to take samples from the polluted river without knowing the perpetrators.

Furthermore, the agency only has three teams consisting of 12 people each to monitor the river regularly.

In July, the team caught red-handed a laundry service called Millenium Laundry, which offers jeans laundering and bleaching services, while it was dumping liquid waste into Bekasi River, turning the river’s color blue.

The company, which is located in Bantar Gebang sub-district, is now temporarily closed.

Other than factories, the upstream areas of Bekasi River, located in Cileungsi and Cikeas, both in Bogor regency, were also polluted as they had been used for years as a dump site for household and industrial waste, Luthfi said.

To help monitor the river, the Bekasi administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Bogor regency administration three months ago. They also share information related to the river’s pollution.