City administration refuses to enforce pollution law

City administration refuses to enforce pollution law

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Residents claim that the companies in Rawa Terate subdistrict at
the Pulo Gadung Industrial Estate in East Jakarta are serious air
polluters, despite a clean air agreement that they all signed two
years ago.

Despite that, they cannot be held responsible as yet, due to
the lack of specific laws regulating such violations, claimed a
senior official at the Jakarta Environmental Management Agency
(BPLHD).

Yusiono Anwar Supalal, head of the agency's division for air
pollution management, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the
factories were actually participants in the Blue Sky program
which made it mandatory for them to control their pollution
within 18 months of signing a special agreement back in June
2001.

The participants include PT Jakarta Cakra Tunggal Steel Mills,
PT Jakarta Steel Megahutama, PT The Master Steel Mfg. Co and PT
Jakarta Prima Steel Industries.

However, it has been exactly 24 months since the agreements
were signed and residents around the area claim they have seen no
significant changes in the air pollution level. Some residents
even stated that the pollution had become worse.

According to the agreement, there are supposed to be legal
consequences if any factory fails to comply within the 18-month
period, or by January of this year. However, there is as yet no
bylaw that specifies those consequences, Supalal said.

"We have forwarded the draft of the bylaw on air pollution to
the City Council," he said, adding that he had no idea when the
draft would be brought up for deliberation.

In the meantime, the agency can only conduct investigations
based on residents' complaints and media reports, said Ridwan
Panjaitan, the head of the agency's division for environmental
impact analysis.

No representatives from the factories could be reached for
comment.

Mas Ahmad Santoso, a researcher from the Indonesian Center for
Environmental Law (ICEL), said that waiting for a bylaw before
taking any legal action in serious pollution cases was a
ridiculous situation.

He said that the agency should investigate the case in Pulo
Gadung right away and forward the findings to the police.

The Jakarta Environmental Management Agency has investigators
to probe such cases and they can cooperate with the office of the
state minister of the environment as well as with the police,
said Santoso.

He said that if the agency failed to take action right away,
it would mean that it also would be in violation of the law, and
could be sued in the State Administrative Court (PTUN).

Santoso said that the agency indeed had a legal precedent to
refer to -- the pollution case involving PT Menara Jaya in
Ciracas, East Jakarta, back in the early 1990s.

The company dumped liquid chromium into a field and a pond,
eventually affecting the health of the residents who lived in the
area.

After three years of trials, the court sent the company
director to jail for one year and required the company to pay for
the residents' health bills for as long as a any chromium-related
illnesses are reported.

Last week the residents, including some health officials, in
Rawa Terate subdistrict, had complained that yellowish brown
smoke, which regularly emanates from a number of steel factories
in the area, was degrading their health.

The residents refer to the smoke as a "dust shower", as dust
often falls like rain from some of the factories.

According to a publication released by the agency, any type of
solids in the air such as dust or other particles which remain
suspended for extended periods can cause cancer and bronchitis.