Jakarta lakes losing function of water catchment

Jakarta lakes losing function of water catchment

JAKARTA (JP): Many lakes in the city no longer function as water catchment areas due to rapid development in the capital, an official says.

Tb. M. Rais, the deputy governor for economic and development affairs, said yesterday that many lakes have been filled and used for residential areas.

"Most of the lakes do not properly function as water catchment places because of illegal works to turn them into residential areas," he said.

Rais said a gubernatorial decree has been issued to prohibit people from developing the city's lake areas.

Unfortunately, he said, the decree is often ignored.

"But we will continue in our efforts to protect them because their function is very important to prevent floods," Rais said.

At present there are 32 lakes throughout the city: in Grogol, Jelambar, Pluit, Muara Angke, Melati, Babakan, Riorio and Rorotan, Teluk Gong, Sunter Timur II, Marunda and Ulujami.

Four of them are still not protected by the decree: Teluk Gong, Sunter Timur II and Marunda in North Jakarta, Ulujami in South Jakarta.

Smaller

Lukman Mokoginta of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) added that the lakes are getting smaller due to residential encroachment.

"The lake in Pluit used to be 90 hectares and now it is only 30 hectares," he said citing an example.

However, Lukman said it is nearly impossible to demolish buildings built on the lake areas, many of which have official building permits.

The only way to cope with the problem is to prohibit the activities of developers and builders by refusing to issue further development permits.

Ahmadin Achmad, the head of the city planning agency, said, however, that any houses built illegally can be demolished.

"If they don't have permits, the city building supervision agency can demolish them," he said.

Meanwhile, the East Jakarta mayoralty plans to build four dams to make up for dwindling lake areas.

East Jakarta Mayor Sudarsono said recently that the dams will be built near the site for the eastern flood canal in Cipinang Besar Selatan and Pondok Kopi subdistrict on 40 hectares of land owned by PT Metropolitan Development.

The government failed to find the money necessary to build the flood canal, which was expected to cost more than Rp 1 trillion (some US$434 million). (yns)