Hotel forced to spend additional funds to buy water

JAKARTA (JP): A four-star hotel on Jl. M. H. Thamrin has been forced to buy 254 tons of water due to the malfunction of the city water installation.

"We have bought 254 tons of water from Kramat Jati water installation, East Jakarta, since Wednesday when the water supply from the city started to decrease in pressure," said Ningsih A. Chandra, the corporate public relations manager of President Hotel yesterday.

She said that for the last two days, the hotel management has spent Rp 4.4 million (US2,037) to buy additional water from the installation.

According to her, the hotel needs around 800 tons of water a day while its artesian well can only provide 300 tons a day.

"The only solution we have now is to reduce the use of water in the hotel," she said.

She said that to save water, the hotel management had decided to close three of its restaurants, Gojyo Tempura, Garden Lounge and Sky Garden Grill and Supper Club, until the water supply is back to normal.

Ningsih added that the hotel had also closed two public rest rooms.

The hotel has 11 restaurants, 315 rooms, including 267 standard rooms, 29 executive suites, 14 deluxe suites and a presidential suite.

Ningsih added, however, that the water shortage will not affect the hotel as long as one of its two water pumps is functioning.

The water supply in the city has sharply decreased because of the prolonged drought season, high levels of river pollution and the damage of Tarum Barat water dam in Kali Malang, East Jakarta on Sept. 3.

The Director of the City Water Company, Syamsu Romli, has said that the damaged dam has caused a sharp decrease in the water supply distributed to the two city main water installations, Pejompongan I and II.

"As a result the water supply to the two installations decreased from between 12 to 14 cubic meters per second to only eight to nine cubic meters per second," he said.

He added that the damage also made the water level in the Tarum Barat duct drop from 1.2 meters to 0.25 meters.

However, city water company spokesman Mustika Siregar, said that the two installations have returned to normal as of yesterday.

Mustika explained that after the damage the water production at the Pejompongan I installation decreased from 1,000 liters per second to 500 liters per second, while the production of Pejompongan II dropped from 2,500 liters per second to 1,500 per second.

The decreasing water supply also affected some of the hotels and buildings along Jl. Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman, Central Jakarta on Wednesday, but most of them managed to overcome the problem because they have enough water in their ground reservoirs.

Sri Sekartadji Asmoro, the Public Relation Manager of Sahid Jaya Hotel and Tower, revealed that on Wednesday the water supply from the city decreased, "But we have 1,000 cubic meters in our reservoir and our four underground wells still distribute 200 liters per second," she said.

Lela Pello of Grand Hyatt also said that the hotel has enough water in its reservoir.(03).