Ground water quality worsens

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Each individual eliminates approximately 0.15 kilograms in bodily waste or excrement every day. With its 8.3 million population, Jakarta produces 1.245 tons of human waste daily, or 454.4 tons annually.

That's really a big issue as Jakarta, which covers a 650,000- square kilometer area, does not have an integrated sewerage system to manage the waste of its residents.

"A huge volume of domestic waste, especially human waste, coupled with the absence of a sewerage system, has caused the quality of ground water in the city to worsen," said Joni Tagor Harahap, head of the air and sea pollution subdivision of the Jakarta Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD), told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Joni pointed out that the rising level of coliform bacteria in most shallow wells located in areas of high population density was due to the contamination of ground water with human waste.

In densely populated areas, many septic tanks are too close to the residents' wells, therefore there is seepage or intrusion into the ground water pumped up for consumption.

Coliform bacteria can lead to water-borne diseases and cause diarrhea which can be fatal for children. Exposure to polluted ground water can also result in various diseases including hepatitis, typhoid and hookworm infection.

Ground water is preferred by most Jakartans as access to clean piped water is limited.

State tap water firm PAM Jaya reported last year that it could only provide clean piped water to 54 percent of Jakarta residents, leaving the remaining 46 percent with no access to tap water. Those who have no access to tap water often build a well to access ground water for their daily needs. However, many Jakartans who are connected to piped water also use ground water due to problems with the tap water service.

Meanwhile, the World Bank (WB) attributed the absence of a sewerage system in the city to a lack of investment.

In the past 20 years, Jakarta has invested US$15 million for constructing fragmentary sewerage facilities in the city. The facilities only 2,300 connections, serving only 2.8 percent of the population.

The first modern sewerage networks in Indonesia were built by the Dutch during the first half of the 20th century in several cities including Bandung, Cirebon, Surakarta, and Yogyakarta. But, over the last two decades, the government has developed fragmentary sewerage systems in other cities like Jakarta, Medan, and Tangerang.

WB also blasted the poor maintenance of the sewerage facilities in which pipes were often blocked and full of sludge, and some of the manhole covers lost and covered by new road surface.

Last year, the city administration and a foreign investor Global Grid of New South Wales, Australia, failed to reach an agreement on the planned construction of a comprehensive sewerage system in Jakarta worth Rp 50 trillion (about US$6 billion). The administration said it could not accept several conditions contained in the draft letter of intent submitted by the company to the administration, including one condition that the firm would take over all of the assets and employees of PT PAL, which manages the city's sewerage facilities.

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Level of coliform bacteria in ground water from shallow wells in Jakarta

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Year ============================================= Location 1999 2000 2001 --------------------------------------------- Central Jakarta 14.29% 16.67% 16.33% South Jakarta 11.91% 12.50% 20.41% West Jakarta 26.19% 22.92% 24.49% East Jakarta 28.57% 19.79% 24.49% North Jakarta 14.29% 16.67% 14.29% ============================================= Acceptable level: zero percent

Source: Jakarta Environmental Management Agency