Drought all the more reason to halt pollution
JAKARTA (JP): The water crisis that has developed in many parts of Indonesia because of the severe drought is all the more reason for everyone, most notably, industries, to stop polluting the scarce available water resources.
State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja yesterday issued an appeal to all manufacturing companies to improve their waste management, specially if they discharge their refuse into rivers.
"We have to take this step because the water crisis is affecting households, industry and farming in some regions," Sarwono said, adding that the command is based on a Presidential instruction.
The first step industries must take is to reduce the quantity of the polluting substance being dumped into rivers, he said.
Second, they must adhere to maximum effluent levels set by the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal) or strive to the amount of waste below those levels.
Manufacturers who fail to observe the appeal could face administrative sanctions, Sarwono said.
The water levels of major reservoirs in most provinces in Indonesia have dropped by an average of one meter in the past month as the bite of the dry season is felt earlier than usual, taking the authorities by surprise.
Many parts of Java, Bali, East and West Nusa Tenggara, East Timor, South Sumatra and the western part of South and Central Sulawesi are among the worst affected by the drought.
In Semarang, Chief of the Central Java Agriculture Office in Central Java Trijono said the early arrival of the dry season has caused harvest failure in rain-fed rice fields.
"Some 16,000 hectares of rice fields have been dried out."
Trijono said that this translates into an equivalent loss of 82,000 tons of rice.
The regencies of Klaten, Grobogan, Sragen, Wonogiri where most of the rice fields depend on rainfall, are the worst hit.
The agriculture office plans to distribute 30 water pumps to 10 of the worst affected regencies.
The drought has also taken its toll on households.
Residents in 60 villages in Banyumas and Cilacap in southwestern Java, have had to abandon their wells because seawater has seeped into the ground water.
Cloud seeding
Minister of Public Works Radinal Moochtar has said that the government will attempt cloud seeding to induce rain in some parts of the country this Thursday.
The job will be done in cooperation with the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT), he said.
"It is the best time for cloud seeding as suggested by the Meteorological and Geophysics Agency," Radinal said.
Radinal yesterday inaugurated new pumping stations in Bojonegoro in East Java to help the area overcome water shortages.
The pumping station project for the lower reaches of the Bengawan Solo river was financed by Japanese government aid.
The lower Bengawan Solo basin is one of the poorest harvest regions for rice in Java mainly due to the lack of an irrigation system.
In order to increase crop production and farmers' income levels, the government plans to construct 33 small-scale pumping stations in the lower Bengawan Solo basin. (prs/wah)