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)