Experts give conditional support to reclamation
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Environmental technology experts with the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) have thrown their weight behind the city administration's plan to reclaim northern coastal areas, despite the opposition of the Office of the State Minister for the Environment.
However, this support is conditional on the administration fulfilling certain conditions set by the BPPT.
One of the experts, Wahyu Purwanto, said on Thursday during a seminar that the administration must begin to address various weaknesses in its plan, which were pointed out by the environmental minister in Decree No. 14/2003.
In the decree, the minister rejects the plan to reclaim 2,500 hectares of land along the 23 kilometers of coastal area between Tangerang and Bekasi.
Wahyu also called on the administration not to continue its legal battle with the state minister's office.
"This problem cannot be resolved through legal action. The administration should revise its plan as advised (by the state minister's office)," he said.
The administration has filed a lawsuit, through six companies, against the state minister's office.
The office rejected the administration's reclamation proposal based on the results of a study by the Environmental Impact Analysis. The office said the reclamation could proceed only if the project was totally redesigned.
Wahyu said the reason the plan was rejected was the administration's failure to explain how it would solve potential problems caused by the reclamation, including flooding and waste management.
Another expert, Arie Herlambang, questioned whether the reclaimed land would be able to meet its clean water needs without burdening surrounding areas.
"Will residents of the reclaimed land be ready to buy clean water produced through desalination, which will cost much more than groundwater," he said.
The director of the BPPT Center for Environmental Technology, Tusy A. Adibroto, said the administration had to anticipate the effects of the reclamation.
She said the administration would have to dredge rivers, construct the East Flood Canal and cooperate with neighboring administrations in Bogor, Depok, Bekasi and Tangerang to improve river catchment areas.
The administration has proposed building luxury housing estates, hotels, condominiums, industrial zones, business centers, shopping malls, offices, seaports and recreational places on the reclaimed land.
The project is expected to take 30 years to complete. The administration has projected a Rp 12 trillion profit from the venture.