City told to act on pollution in bay
Damar Harsanto and Urip Hudiono, Jakarta
Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Rokhmin Dahuri urged the Jakarta administration on Thursday to promptly resolve the problem of pollution in the Jakarta Bay, which is killing fish and harming the industry.
In a media briefing on Thursday, Rokhmin suggested that Jakartans not consume any fish or clams caught in the bay for the meantime.
Not ignoring the possibility of toxic waste from industrial plants as the origin of the pollution, he cited the preliminary analysis conducted by his office's research center, the Office of the State Minister of Research and Technology and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences of the finding of a high level of ammonia in the sea, possibly due to the red-tide phenomenon.
The red-tide phenomenon is the extreme proliferation of toxic algae, which usually occurs between seasons when the sea warms up, which can be identified from the reddening of the sea and the strong smell of ammonia.
Thousands of fish and clams have died along Jakarta's northern coast since last week, and the phenomenon reportedly spread to the Thousand Islands on Wednesday.
Although no dead fish were to be seen in the waters of the Thousand Islands on Thursday, a manager of a resort island located northwest of Jakarta Bay said that the waters did appear more polluted at certain times.
"Currents from the bay sometimes make the waters surrounding this island very murky," said Bidadari island manager Bambang Hermanto. "The currents wash up a black, tar-like substance on our beaches every so often."
Bambang did not know where the pollution came from, but alluded to the island's proximity to Jakarta's shoreline.
"What is certain is that the situation obviously makes it difficult for us to keep our beaches clean, and dissuades guests from bathing in the sea," he said.
Bidadari island is located six kilometers from the mouths of the Kamal and Dadap rivers, which are lined by industrial plants, and whose waters are thick with black sludge and have a foul stench.
Several large vessels, including a tanker, meanwhile, were anchored in the bay, just kilometers from the island.
The Jakarta Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD) suspected the cause of the toxic phenomenon in the bay's waters and immediately sent out a warning to Jakartans against consuming any fish or clams caught in the bay pending the completion of its investigation.
North Jakarta Mayor Effendy Anas, however, suggested that the dead fish and clams were due to a common practice of fishermen.
"The population of fish in the sea is booming. I assume that the dead fish were dumped by the fishermen after they caught better fish," said Effendy Anas.
"Today, there is no problem in Jakarta Bay. Yesterday we released live fish into the sea, and they survived," he claimed, simply ignoring the advice by the environmental agency.