Council asks Sutiyoso not to push for reclamation

Council asks Sutiyoso not to push for reclamation

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The City Council has asked the City Administration not to pursue
the plan to reclaim the northern coastal area of the city as the
project once implemented could bring environmental damage.

Council Deputy Speaker Tarmidi Suhardjo advised the city
officials to discuss the issue thoroughly with the environment
minister, who has rejected the project because it is not
environmentally sound.

"Officials from the central government and the city
administration should meet to discuss the negative and positive
aspects of the project," Tarmidi told The Jakarta Post on
Thursday.

Tarmidi said that it was the conclusion of the closed-door
meeting between the Council leaders and officials of the city
administration involved in the project led by assistant to the
city secretary for development affairs Irzal Djamal.

The Council summoned the officials on Monday to discuss the
controversial reclamation project, which, if implemented, would
affect some 2,700 hectares of sea along the 32-kilometer northern
coastal area of the city.

The project, which according to executive chairman of the
Jakarta Waterfront Management Board M. Sidarta is worth around Rp
20 trillion, would be developed in stages over a 30-year period.

Last month, State Minister for the Environment Nabiel Makarim
rejected the reclamation plan, after conducting a new study on
the draft of the environmental impact analysis (Amdal) for the
project which revealed that the project was both socially and
environmentally infeasible.

The ministry then uncovered several negative effects of the
project. First, the reclamation project would cause the sea level
to rise by up to 12 centimeters; second, it would cause social
problems as thousands of fishermen will lose their source of
income; third, it would damage the ocean ecosystem as some 330
million cubic meter of sand would be used for the reclamation;
and fourth, it would worsen pollution around Kepulauan Seribu
(Thousand Islands).

The minister also urged President Megawati Soekarnoputri to
issue a decree to revoke Presidential Decree No. 52/1995 issued
by former president Soeharto which become the legal basis for the
city administration to implement the project.

Irzal told the press after the meeting that the city
administration may ignore the recommendation of the state
minister for the environment, saying that according to the law on
regional autonomy, the Amdal recommendation could be issued by
the provincial environmental impact management agency (Bapedalda)
without being approved by the ministry.

Previously, Governor Sutiyoso also stressed that he would go
ahead with the reclamation plan, saying that the project was the
most feasible way to deal with the problem of limited land in the
fast growing metropolis.

Chairman of the Environmental Task Force (ETF) Ahmad "Puput"
Syafruddin, who took part in studying the reclamation Amdal, said
that the Amdal document failed to spell out how they would deal
with the negative social and environmental effects resulting from
the project.

According to Puput, compensation for all risks which may be
caused by the project should be taken into account in the Amdal
document.

Puput said some of the negative impacts that should be taken
into amount include the loss of work for hundreds of fishermen,
possible worsening floods and the extinction of various species.

"The city officials and experts could not address the problems
when we asked them. Therefore we conclude that the project is
infeasible environmentally and socially," he added.