Level of Jakarta air pollution unknown

Level of Jakarta air pollution unknown

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jakarta is rated the world's third most polluted city after
Mexico City and Bangkok, but an expert from the Bandung Institute
of Technology (ITB) warns that the full extent of air pollution
in the capital remains unknown.

Researcher Driejana of ITB's Air Quality Laboratory told a
seminar here last week that the capital, populated by around 12
million people, has only five air monitors, a far
cry from the ideal of one monitor per 200,000 people.

On top of that, air pollution indexes displayed by the
monitors were from the previous day, making it almost impossible
to know the real time of air pollution control.

"We cannot use the displays as an early warning instrument for
travelers because the information is out of date," she told
participants of a workshop on city policy for air control.

According to data from the Jakarta Environmental Management
Agency (BPLHD), the city has only five air monitors, namely in
Senayan, Central Jakarta; Pondok Indah, South Jakarta; Kemayoran,
Central Jakarta, and at the offices of South and West Jakarta
municipalities.

The display screens, on the other hand, are stationed in
Rawamangun and Cakung, East Jakarta; Pondok Indah; Pluit, North
Jakarta and Gambir, Central Jakarta.

The monitors measure five parameters of main pollutants --
particulate matters with a diameter of less than 10 micron
(PM10), nitrogen oxide (NOx) sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon
monoxide (CO) and ozone (O3).

Driejana said the separate placement of monitors and air
pollution indexes displays was another weakness of the monitoring
system "because what is displayed there does not indicate the
conditions of the air in the respective area".

City officials claimed earlier that the number of days with
clean air had steadily decreased in the past few years.

She said the number of air monitors in the city was far from
enough and Jakarta, with its 12 million population, needed at
least 600 monitors.

A proper air pollution monitoring system was the most
significant part of efforts to reduce air pollution, she added

"How can we start to clean up the air if we do not have valid
data about air pollution?" Driejana said.

Tjuk Sudono, an environmentalist with the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP), questioned the seriousness of the
city administration in overcoming air pollution when it did very
little to resolve the basic problem of air pollution.

"It is the task of environmentalists to force the city to
allocate a larger budget for environment protection, including
cleaning up the city's air," said Tjuk at the workshop organized
by Swisscontact, the Partnership for Clean Emission and the
Indonesian People's Foundation (YOI).

In February, the city enacted Bylaw No. 2/2005 on air
pollution control, which comes into effect next year. Among the
measures stipulated in the bylaw are smoking restrictions and the
mandatory use of compressed natural gas (CNG) for public
transportation.

But many are pessimistic that all public vehicles would use
CNG next year because the city administration had not revealed
any concrete policy on preparing the mandatory use of CNG.