Islanders face shortage of portable water

Leo Wahyudi S, The Jakarta Post, Seribu Islands

Panggang island is a small island in Kepulauan Seribu regency and even though it is surrounded by water, it its residents lack potable water.

The nine-hectare Panggang island, which has a population of more than 3,200 people, is part of Panggang subdistrict, which comprises 13 islets with a total area of 62 hectares.

If the island's inhabitants want artesian water clean enough for drinking, they have to dig down 300 meters, which is costly. The island used to have a 300-meter-deep well courtesy of the government, but it has died up.

"People have to drill up to 300 meters deep to get relatively clean water. But drilling is a difficult job because there is hard stone underneath the top soil," said Sanwani, a native local resident. He added, however, that the artesian water was a bit salty and not good for drinking.

Most residents have wells that are only five to 10 meters deep. The wells serve as a source of water for bathing and washing only. They have to rely on rainwater for drinking. Almost all the houses there have containers to catch rainwater.

Abdul Sukur, a seaweed farmer on the island, noted that many of his neighbors's wells had soft water that was salty.

"Fortunately, water from my well is much better even though it's still not very clean," he told The Jakarta Post here recently. He said his well was much deeper than the others.

Arifudin, another resident, said he had two sources of water at his house, namely a well and a rainwater tank.

"I have a tank to catch rainwater," Arifudin said, noting that his tank could hold about 3,000 liters of water.

Many residents have built a crude and simple rainwater catching system on their house roofs from which rainwater flows directly to containers below.

The island suffers a water shortage during the dry season as rainfall is rare. And it is during the dry season that inhabitants rely on the water caught during the rainy season for drinking water.

"We use rainwater only for drinking and cooking so that we can make it last through the dry season," Arifudin said. Well water is used for purposes other than drinking and cooking.

However, when rainwater is running low, most residents expect to get clean water from the city administration.

A local resident said the administration usually gave free water to inhabitants in August. But the administration has not supplied residents with free water this dry season, forcing the people without rainwater catching systems to buy water from those who do.

"I have had to spend at least Rp 2,000 for 40 liters of water a day this dry season," he grumbled.

Adi Sasongko, a doctor working for the Kusuma Buana Foundation, said the problem of clean water shortages could cause health problems such as diarrhea and intestinal worms.

"The lack of water has partly affected people's habits in hygiene," Adi said, underlining that the high prevalence of intestinal worms was proof of unhygienic habits on the island, whose residents are low-income people.