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70 percent of Tangerang industries use groundwater: Agency
The excessive use of groundwater for industrial purposes has caused numerous wells to be contaminated with iron and seawater.
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Environmentalists erect a banner in the contaminated Cisadane River in Tangerang, Banten, on May 23, 2016. (Tempo/Marifka Wahyu Hidayat)
S
eventy percent of 5,018 industries in Tangerang regency, Banten, use groundwater, posing a threat to clean water resources, an environmental agency has said.
“The impact is significant,” said Tangerang Environment Agency head of pollution control and environmental damage Budi Khumaedi on Thursday as quoted by tempo.co.
The excessive use of groundwater for industrial purposes, he said, had caused numerous wells to be contaminated with iron and seawater.
“Groundwater from wells is no longer safe to consume,” he said, highlighting Sepatan as one of several districts that was suffering from contamination.
The Banten provincial administration, not Tangerang regency, has the authority to create a regulation that sets limits on the use of groundwater for industrial purposes.
Hence, Budi said, the Tangerang administration could only urge that business owners stop exploiting groundwater and switch to using water from pipelines managed by PDAM Tirta Kertas Raharja and PT Aetra Air Tangerang.
PT Aetra Air Tangerang commercial and operational director Okta Ismojo said the company, in processing water that was distributed to customers, had a layered filtering process that removed any unwanted materials.
In Tangerang regency, Okta added, the number of industrial sites that used groundwater was significantly more than those that used tap water services.
“If these factories keep exploiting groundwater excessively without proper infiltration wells, groundwater will soon dry out,” he said. (vla)
