Lack of tap water drains city's groundwater
Lack of tap water drains city's groundwater
JAKARTA (JP): The exploitation of groundwater in the city is unavoidable because the water supplied by city-owned PAM Jaya is very limited, an official has said.
The head of the Jakarta Mining Office, Arifin Akbar, said over the weekend that prohibiting people from establishing deep wells is impossible unless tap water supply is adequate.
PAM Jaya produces only 46 percent of the city's water total demand, he said.
Last August there were 2,871 artesian wells in Jakarta with a total water consumption of 2.8 million cubic meters of water per month.
"Ideally no artesian wells would be allowed. But, practically, artesian wells are the only alternative for households in Jakarta where PAM Jaya does not supply. There is no other way to fulfill the demand of clean water but to dig deep wells," Arifin said.
Last year the administration sealed 150 artesian wells.
Artesian wells are any wells which are between 40 and 250 meters in depth.
The government has been very concerned about the excessive use of groundwater.
North Jakarta
The director general of water resources development at the Ministry of Public Works, Soeparmono, recently warned that calamity would strike if the excessive use of groundwater by households and industries was not controlled.
He pointed out that the ground in North Jakarta has subsided and will further drop by as much as four meters in the next three decades unless the use of groundwater is properly controlled.
To deal with such a problem the government has taken several steps, including charging owners of artesian wells high fees.
In April last year the administration raised the rates for artesian wells for household, social, commercial and industrial use between 150 and 250 percent.
The step was aimed at discouraging the further depletion of groundwater and help preserve ground water potential.
As a result the consumption of artesian water in Jakarta has fallen from 3.2 million cubic meters per month to 2.6 million cubic meters, while before the increase the consumption tended to increase by 1.5 million cubic meters annually.
Adequate
He said that the city still has adequate groundwater, but will continue to control the use of artesian wells.
Governor Surjadi Soedirdja warned last year that the potential of groundwater in the city only reached around 77 million cubic meters annually.
According to the bureau of statistics, for 1995 alone the potential reserve of groundwater in the city was 3.49 billion cubic meters. This consisted of 2.86 billion cubic meters of rain water, 347.24 million cubic meters of upper level groundwater (at a depth of less than 40 meters) and 281.67 million cubic meters of deep well water.
In that year only 652.94 million cubic meters of groundwater was used and there was 2.84 billion cubic meters of water which was unused.
The sustainable use of existing water sources is estimated at 42 million cubic meter per annum.
According to 1995 data, 2.86 billion cubic meters of rainwater was caught in water catchments, 24.02 million cubic meters of which was used for agricultural purposes. (yns/sur)