Jakarta to have two dams to check flood

Jakarta to have two dams to check flood

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration is on its way to building two dams in Sunter, North Jakarta, to help control the annual floods in 38 vulnerable areas.

"The proposal for the development of the Sunter I and Sunter III dams are being processed," Head of the city Public Work office Soeharto said yesterday.

Soeharto told Antara the construction of the dams is part of the city administration's program to normalize the function of the Sunter river.

"The normalization, which has been in operation since April last year, includes clearing the river banks of illegal buildings, removing garbage and constructing concrete foundation on part of its banks.

Under the normalization work, the width of the river has been extended from 15 meters to 23 meters and its depth from only four meters to about seven meters, Soeharto said.

Besides the development of the two dams, his office will also excavate the other existing dams in Grogol, Melati, Rawa Kelapa, Muara Karang and Setiabudi, which are filled with mud.

"We're going to take out the muddy soil at the bottom of the dams, which have made them shallow," he said.

In order to fight against floods, which have caused losses amounting to billions of rupiah annually, the Public Work office has carried out several other normalization projects on 13 rivers. "We have also built flood gates which are equipped with dozen of water pumps," he said.

According to Soeharto, the current condition of 13 rivers in the city is very bad and their depths quite shallow.

"The amount of garbage in those rivers totaled 1,400 cubic meters," he said. "Of that, only 300 cubic meters could be picked out," he added.

Therefore, all the rivers will be normalized to help reduce the danger of flooding, he said.

He urged all city residents to have a greater awareness not to throw garbage recklessly into the rivers. (bsr)