Residents of a fishermen's village in Kamal Muara, North Jakarta, have said that they are suffering from a decrease in seafood sales, with reports stating that green mussels from Jakarta Bay pose serious health risks.

Lilis, a 56-year-old who has been harvesting green mussels from Jakarta Bay for the last 12 years with her son and husband, said fewer and fewer people had been visiting the Kamal Muara fish market in the last several months following the reports.

“We used to have a lot of people come here in the morning to buy mussels, but now there are fewer customers visiting the market. I am lucky that a seafood restaurant buys all my harvested mussels, so I haven’t been affected too much. However, other fishermen have suffered a drop in sales,” Lilis told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday morning after harvesting mussels with her husband and son.

Lilis said almost all residents living in the fisherman’s village near the fish market relied on green mussels to make a living.

“Some people harvest the green mussels, some get money by cooking the mussels for other fishermen or shucking them, some are vendors for raw and cooked mussels at the market,” she said.

The sales decline has exacerbated other problems, with mussel harvesters working with razor thin revenues while dealing with a decrease in production due to the prolonged dry season.

“Harvesting green mussels is quite expensive. We spend Rp 5 million [US$353] to Rp 7 million to buy bamboo and ropes for collecting mussel larvae, and they can only be harvested six months later,” Lilis said, adding that fisherfolk could harvest around 100 buckets of mussels during a good harvest.

Adding to the costs, she said, were fees that needed to be set aside for those who boiled and shucked the mussels. Lilis said she paid people Rp 1,000 per bucket to boil harvested mussels and Rp 3,000 per bucket to shuck them.

As a result of the dry season, which started several months ago, the quality of mussels has decreased, causing prices to also drop. “If the mussels are big, we can sell them for Rp 35,000 per kilogram. However, since the mussels harvested now are small, we can only sell them for Rp 15,0000 per kg,” Lilis said.

Earlier this year, a professor at the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Department at Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), Etty Riany, released findings indicating that fish and mussels from Jakarta Bay contained toxic and hazardous compounds (B3) and hence were dangerous for consumption. She said in February that people who consumed seafood from Jakarta were susceptible to cancer and degenerative diseases like kidney failure.

North Jakarta Maritime, Fisheries and Food Security Agency head Rita Nirmala said previously that eating fish and green mussels from Jakarta Bay was dangerous as they were contaminated with heavy metal compounds that came from factories that dumped their waste into rivers in and around the capital.

Jakarta Bay has long faced challenges related to pollution, contributing to Jakarta’s mounting land waste issues. Research last year by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences’ (LIPI) oceanography division found that 21 tons of waste pollutes Jakarta Bay every day. The waste flows into the bay from seven rivers in Jakarta and two rivers in its satellite cities — one each in Tangerang, Banten, and Bekasi, West Java.

Nurroid, a green mussel hawker from West Jakarta, complained about a drop in sales ever since reports began circulating that eating mussels resulted in health risks.

The 35-year-old left his job as a crew member on a fishing boat three years ago to sell cooked green mussels.

“The reports have been affecting my sales. I used to be able to gain revenues of Rp 600,000 to Rp 800,000 a day but now I can only earn Rp 400,000 to Rp 600,000. Although a lot of people are afraid to eat mussels now, I still don’t believe eating them is dangerous because I’ve been eating them almost every day but I never feel sick or anything” he said.

Green mussels are known for their super-filter properties as they can take in phytoplankton for nourishment. However, this means they can also easily consume microplastics, pesticides and other pollutants. As they pump and filter water through their gills in order to feed and breathe, mussels store almost everything that passes through.

City-owned amusement park Ancol Dreamland Park recently launched a program to support a colony of green mussels in Ancol Lake to take advantage of the animal’s natural filtration ability to help clean the bay's water.

Tarsoen Waryono, a professor at the University of Indonesia's School of Geography, found in 2017 that metal compounds in Jakarta Bay mainly came from rivers from the eastern side of the province, namely the Cilincing and Cipinang rivers and West Java’s Cibinong River. Industrial areas specializing in chemicals or clothing are often a source of the pollutants in these rivers.

According to the study, the Mookervart River in Tangerang, Banten, and the Pulogadung industrial area in East Jakarta also carry metal compounds to the city's bay.

Rita said the Jakarta administration had tried to relocate fisherfolk who operated in the bay to the cleaner Thousands Island regency in 2016 and to Panimbang, Banten, in 2010, but they refused to move.

“Fisherfolk are reluctant to look for mussels in waters near Thousand Islands and Panimbang because they are thinner as the water there is cleaner. The mussels in the bay are larger because of the pollutants. The heavier a mussel weighs, the more it is sold for at the market,” she said.

Meanwhile, Dini Romdhoni, a 28-year-old from Depok, West Java, said recently he got sick after eating green mussels from Jakarta Bay.

“I felt ill after eating the green mussels my wife cooked for me. I had diarrhea and threw up several times. That incident made me lose my appetite for green mussels” he said.

However, some seafood lovers have paid no mind to the reports of health risks.

Kamal, an office worker form Bekasi, West Java, said even though he was aware that green mussels from Jakarta Bay were said to be dangerous, he did not plan to stop eating them.

“I regularly eat green mussels because they taste very good. I am aware of the news reports that say green mussels are unhealthy, but honestly I have never felt sick after eating them. I think as long as they are cooked and cleaned properly, they would be quite safe to eat,” he told the Post by phone on Wednesday.

Tya, a housewife from Bogor, West Java, expressed a similar sentiment. “I think as long as we eat them in normal amounts and not too frequently, we will be fine,” she said, brushing off concerns about health risks.

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