Investigations into pollution cases move at snail's pace

Evi Mariani, Jakarta

As the Jakarta Police are yet to name any suspects in the investigation of three major environmental cases since January this year, the Environmental Preservation organization has called for immediate action to uphold the environmental law.

"The police seem slow in handling the (environmental) cases, particularly the oil spill in December in Thousand Islands waters," the organization's legal officer Sauttua P. Situmorang told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

He cited that while police were yet to complete their investigation of December's oil spill, another oil spill had occurred in the same area earlier this month.

The oil spill last year was the first major environmental case handled by the city police. Detectives took samples of the polluted water in January and February. They also took oil samples from a nearby rig belonging to China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) in April.

All the samples were submitted to the National Police Headquarters forensics laboratory.

However, city police spokesman Sr. Comr. Prasetyo said the results were not expected until the end of May.

"We will summon several expert witnesses to analyze the test results and we hope to come to a conclusion at the end of June," he said.

The police have also been investigating their second major environmental case: the felling of 240 mangrove trees in Angke protected forest in North Jakarta.

While investigation of the case began in the second week of April, five weeks have passed and the police are yet to summon officials from PT Rainbow Cipta Utama advertising agency for questioning.

It is suspected that the trees were cut down so that advertising billboards belonging to Rainbow were not obstructed from view.

The police are also busy with their investigation over thousands of dead fish found in Jakarta Bay early this month.

However, while the Jakarta Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD) announced the result of its preliminary analysis of sea water samples on May 11 -- which claimed that the dead fish were caused by a natural phenomenon -- the police have only now taken seawater samples.

They do not expect the result of tests on the samples in the near future.

The city police special crime division chief Sr. Comr. Edmon Ilyas denied that his officers had been slow, arguing the investigation of environmental cases required time and attention to detail.

"Summoning expert witnesses can be a lengthy task, they are usually busy people who have tight schedules," he said.