Environmental troubles to grow, Sarwono says

Environmental troubles to grow, Sarwono says

PEKANBARU, Riau (JP): Minister of Environment Sarwono
Kusumaatmadja has warned the community of even greater
environmental risks accompanying the acceleration of development
in the next 25-year period.

Speaking at the opening of the provincial office of the
Environmental Impact Management Agency here yesterday, Sarwono
said Indonesia is facing real environmental threats.

"We are going to face very real challenges in the future,
coming from the contamination of water, air and land, in addition
to the increased risks of toxic waste to people's lives," he
said.

Sarwono, who is also the chairman of the central office of the
agency, said that with the officially-set economic growth target
of 7 percent per year for the next 25 years, the volume of
development will also grow. "This will certainly be accompanied
by greater environmental risks," he said.

The condition demands that the government and the community in
general seriously improve the management of natural resources, he
said. "This also means the need to stop mistreating our natural
resources, an old habit ingrained in the lives of officials, the
community in general and businesspeople," he said.

Sarwono is also in town to open a seminar on environmental
management which will be addressed by experts such as Adam
Ibrahim and Nabil Makarim, both from the central office of the
agency.

In another part of his speech, Sarwono said the agency is
currently paying more attention to managing industrial waste,
through programs such as the Clean River Program and the Business
Performance Rating which evaluates factories' waste water.

Volume

Follow-up studies in the programs showed that industry-related
pollution has declined in several rivers, while the volume of
domestic waste has increased in a number of densely populated
areas, Sarwono said. He did not specify or give statistics.

"We expect industrial waste to increase in areas which have
not been targeted by the Clean River Program, while it is
precisely in those areas that more industries will grow in the
near future," he said.

Sarwono recently announced findings of the agency's study into
waste discharged by more than 200 companies in the country. The
companies were rated in terms of their performance: gold for
companies with zero pollution, followed by green, blue, red, and
black for the worst polluters.

None of the companies surveyed received the gold rating.

Sarwono named all five that were rated black but refrained
from naming all the 115 that were rated red, a category reserved
for companies which, despite taking steps to control its waste
water, failed to even reach the minimum standards of liquid waste
which may be discharged into rivers.

The agency's just-opened office in Pekanbaru is responsible
for environmental management in the provinces of Jambi, Riau,
North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Aceh, Bengkulu, Lampung and South
Sumatra. (31/swe)