'Dust shower' disturbs Pulo Gadung residents
'Dust shower' disturbs Pulo Gadung residents
Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Almost every day, about 150 families in Kampung Sawah, Rawa
Terate, East Jakarta, inhale black smoke generated by a steel
processing factory that looms over the houses.
Kampung Sawah is only separated by a shallow three-meter-wide
river from PT Jakarta Cakratunggal Steel Mills, which produces
steel for construction purposes.
"Every morning, the factory belches out white smoke and every
evening, it billows out black smoke for hours. We call it a dust
shower," Awaluddin, a Kampung Sawah neighborhood chief unit, said
last week.
He said that every day, he and his wife had to clean a one-
centimeter-thick layer of dust deposited by the shower of dust.
Seen from afar, Kampung Sawah looks like it is being fumigated
by the factory, which cloaks the area with suffocating smoke,
while dozens of children played cheerfully outdoors.
"Maybe we are quite used to the smoke, but lately it's been
getting worse," said Awaluddin, who has lived there since 1984.
Most of the residents have lived there more than 10 years.
Their occupations vary from factory workers to motorcycle taxi
(ojek) drivers and to farmers, who grow rice on about a one-
hectare plot of land in front of the houses.
He added that many residents had respiratory problems,
including his five-year-old daughter, Amelia.
Amelia was two when she began to have trouble breathing, and
Awaluddin took her to Persahabatan Hospital in Rawamangun, East
Jakarta, for treatment. Luckily, these days she no longer has
problems breathing, but Awaluddin does not really know what
caused her illness, even today.
The river is also severely polluted, and it shines black with
oil.
The farmers who live in Kampung Sawah use the river water to
irrigate their rice fields, the harvests from which are sold in
Karawang, West Java.
Because the river is so polluted, the residents use well water
for washing and bathing -- they have dug a well of about 12
meters in depth, and pump it up using an electric pump.
However, Awaluddin said that the ground water was also
unhealthy.
"We can smell the iron and rust in the water, and if we let
the water stand for an hour, it will turn yellowish brown," he
said.
Nevertheless, the residents still use it for washing, although
they do realize that the water turns their clothes yellow, and at
times damages their clothes.
Furthermore, Awaluddin and his neighbors are clueless as to
what the water could do to their health, as they use it to bathe,
brush their teeth and gargle.
As for drinking water, the residents buy water directly from
city water company PAM Jaya, which delivers water in trucks and
stores it in two reservoirs in the area.
Most residents blamed the smoke for their respiratory
problems, but they have no proof that their illnesses were caused
by the pollution.
"It would be good if our neighborhood could be checked once in
a while to see whether or not it is still healthy to live here,"
said Awaluddin, unaware that an air pollution inspection can cost
up to Rp 2 million.
He said that maybe the right thing to do was to wait for the
authorities to come down and inspect the pollution levels.
Officials at PT Jakarta Cakratunggal, the steel mill which the
residents allege causes the pollution, could not be reached for
comment.