BPPT to start cloud seeding in three provinces in October
BPPT to start cloud seeding in three provinces in October
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Farmers in three provinces are hoping that their crops will soon
see some rain as the result of government cloud seeding programs
that are expected to be shortly instituted.
The provinces of West Java, Central Java and Lampung have
asked the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology
(BPPT) to get the programs underway, an agency official said
Thursday.
"We started our survey this month," Baginda P. Sitorus, the
director of the Weather Modification Technical Service Unit at
the agency, told reporters during a media conference, adding that
there was now sufficient moisture in the air to start cloud
seeding.
For Central Java, Sitorus said, the BPPT would start cloud
seeding after tobacco farmers in the province had brought in
their harvests.
The cloud seeding operations would be jointly financed by the
Coordinating Ministry for People's Welfare, the Ministry of
Settlements and Regional Infrastructure, the Ministry of
Agriculture and the provincial administrations, he said.
Baginda gave few details about the costs involved or for how
long the cloud seeding operations would last in the affected
provinces, but he said that his unit would need some Rp 800
million for a period of 10 days.
In April, the BPPT conducted two cloud seeding operations in
West Java, which cost the agency Rp 1.6 billion to produce 283
million cubic meters of water, which was used for farming,
consumption and electricity generation purposes.
A number of observers had earlier suggested that the
government would be better off supplying clean water directly to
communities in the worst-hit areas using the money that would
otherwise have been spent on cloud seeding. The water derived
from cloud seeding, they said, would not be enough to satisfy the
public's need for clean water as much of the water would be
absorbed into the soil.
However, Sitorus insisted that cloud seeding would be
beneficial as the water it produced could be used not only for
consumption purposes, but also for agriculture and electricity
generation.
He confirmed that the rainwater derived from cloud seeding
could also be consumed as it did not contain any hazardous
substances as some people feared.
It is hoped that the cloud seeding in West Java will provide
relief for the farmers in that province, where a total of 300,000
hectares of crops have failed due to the severe drought.
It was also expected to help replenish a number of major
reservoirs in the province, such as the Jatiluhur reservoir,
which supplies water to one of the largest hydropower plants on
Java island.
The Jatiluhur Dam's director of operations, Tukul Santoso,
said that the water level in the reservoir was still falling and
would soon be less than 80 millimeters, which was only enough
water to drive two of the six turbines in the power plant.
"We expect all the generators to stop operating in late
September if the water level continues to decline," he said.