Local people turn hostile to sand quarrying

Local people turn hostile to sand quarrying

Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

Bambang, a resident of Mlirip hamlet in the East Java town of Mojokerto, can only sit still watching how sand quarrying machines are operated in Brantas River.

"It's really appalling because despite frequent warnings from locals, sand quarrying machines continue to operate," Bambang told The Jakarta Post several weeks ago.

He said locals living close to the sand quarrying sites have warned those undertaking sand quarrying in Brantas River, but these warnings have fallen on deaf ears.

Sand quarrying simply proceeds with sand pumps and conveyors. Annoyed that their warnings have gone unheeded, locals have frequently pelted stones at the passing sand quarrying groups and even worse, a group of people in Jombang burned a boat and the sand pumps used for sand quarrying a few weeks ago.

Why do the people resort to stone pelting and burning boats then?

Bambang said people living near the sand quarrying sites feel economically and ecologically disadvantaged by the activity.

Usually sand quarrying is carried out by people from outside Mojokerto. They exploit the sand in Brantas River for their own benefit. In a day, dozens of trucks pick up the quarried sand and transport it to be sold to major cities. Locals can eventually only bear the brunt of this quarrying activity.

"We now realize that excessive sand quarrying will damage the river environment," Bambang said.

The flood of mud that hit Mojokerto several weeks ago, he said, was a good lesson for the locals and made them realize the significance of maintaining the ecosystem of Brantas River. This flood, killing dozens of locals and damaging a number of houses and buildings, was caused both by bare mountain areas and also sand quarrying.

Director of Sahabat Lingkungan, a non-governmental organization dealing with environment in Mojokerto, Satrijo Wiweko, said that the use of machines in sand quarrying would cause the Brantas River bed to subside.

In 2000, he said, the depth of the river ran, on average, about six meters from the surface but today the depth has become nine meters. As a result, the process in which sand comes down from the side of the riverbanks will be affected. In the wet season, when the river water increases in volume, the sand from one side of the riverbanks will fall away, increasing the pressure of the river water and, consequently, breaking the river dikes.

This will make the river overflow and flood residential areas, which will threaten the lives of tens of thousands of families. Once the dike leaks or collapses, hundreds of riverine villages in Jombang and Mojokerto regencies will be submerged.

Aside from the threat it poses to Mojokerto and Jombang residents, sand quarrying activities are also very likely to cause the collapse of Surabaya-Mojokerto bridge because the area under this bridge is the usual site for these activities.

Understandably, when the sand quarrying continues, the pillars of the bridge will become unbalanced as the river bed sinks further.

He added that his organization has alerted the local administration about this danger. In 1984, he added, a bridge connecting Padangan-Mojokerto collapsed, due partly to this factor.

"This is a serious problem that concerns the safety of people crossing the bridge," he said.

More and more people have been engaged in mechanical sand quarrying in Brantas River, spanning from the border area between Nganjuk-Kediri, to Jombang and Mojokerto, since 1998.

Previously, people only dived into the river to collect the sand. As the local administration fails to exercise proper and strict control, mechanical sand quarrying has become rampant.

Indeed, because of rampant sand quarrying activities, the East Java governor issued in 2003, decree No. 29, on the management of sand quarrying activities along the rivers of Brantas, Surabaya, Porong and Marmoyo. This gubernatorial decision lays down the rule of the game for sand quarrying activities.

It prohibits, for example, the use of machines and stipulates that only cooperatives with members comprising locals can undertake these activities. Besides, a permit from the head of the local energy and mineral resources agency must be obtained before these activities start. If any of these stipulations are violated, the permit will be revoked.

Talking about sand quarrying permits, thechief of general mining and energy sub-service of East Java energy and mineral resources agency, Tutut Tri Herawati, said that there were only 14 companies actively undertaking sand quarrying in East Java. All these companies possess permits to undertake sand quarrying over a total area of 341.01 hectares.

Six of these companies operate over a total area of 137.51 hectares in Blitar and another one, also in Blitar, carries out its sand quarrying over a 3-hectare area only. One other company operates in Brantas River over an area measuring some 10 hectares and four companies in Kediri, over a total area measuring 190.5 hectares.

The number of people undertaking unlicensed sand quarrying is great, she said, adding that there could be thousands of them. However, they operate only on areas measuring between 0.5 hectare and 1 hectare.

Secretary general of the Association of Mining Companies (Aspertam), East Java chapter, Hudin Al Sonny, said that not a single company undertaking sand quarrying in the Brantas River had joined Aspertam, which now brings together 148 licensed mining companies.

"We monitor the permits of our members. If their permits expire, we shall remind them to reregister," he said. The size of a mining area determines the length of validity of a mining permit. A permit issued for mining activities over a vast area will usually be valid for five years.

To avoid stone pelting from locals and raids carried out by the local administration, mechanical sand quarrying is usually done out between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.. At daylight, thousands of trucks are ready to transport the sand to places outside the town.