Many small lakes ignored, erased from city maps

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

There are about 200 small lakes that function as water catchment areas in Greater Jakarta, but most of them have been damaged and some disappeared.

Data from the Ministry of Resettlement and Regional Infrastructure shows that most of the lakes are located outside Jakarta, with 122 in Bogor, West Java; 45 in Tangerang, Banten; 17 in Bekasi, West Java, and 15 in Jakarta.

This information indicates that at least two lakes in Tangerang have been turned into rice fields, and that three others have given way to dry ground.

Lakes in other areas, meanwhile, were declared as damaged without any further explanation.

The data in Jakarta differs from what was issued by the Jakarta Ministry for Public Works, which showed that there were 17 lakes in the capital.

The ministry apparently considers some lakes as just one lake, making its number of lakes smaller.

Leo Y. Sianturi, an agency official, said that several lakes in Jakarta had disappeared.

They include Situ Rawa Ulujami in Ulujami subdistrict of South Jakarta; Situ Rawa Kendal in Marunda, North Jakarta; Situ Rawa Rorotan in Cakung, East Jakarta, and Situ Mangga Bolong in Lenteng Agung, East Jakarta.

Dedi Sudharma of the Bogor Agricultural Institute underlined several reasons why the small lakes have continuously deteriorated.

First, the small lakes were located in residential areas and industrial zones, and were used as dumping sites for garbage or waste which, in turn, made them shallow.

According to Dedi, polluted water from houses and industries can also speed up the deterioration, as such water is a good place for various weeds, like water hyacinth, to grow.

The second factor, he said, was a lack of a sense of community on the part of people or developers around the lakes. And the third was a lack of political will on the part of the government to protect the lakes.

Dedi, who is chairman of the Water Resources Development at the IPB's Environmental Research Center, said that the government should pay better attention to Greater Jakarta's small lakes, as they could accommodate a lot of water if their condition were improved.

Chairman of the Jakarta Chapter of the Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) Ahmad Safrudin said that some of the housing developers also contributed to the problem.

Ahmad said that, although the city's master plan stated that the lakes should be protected, government officials had a tendency to be easily swayed by the influence of money when it came to issuing license permits.

"Because of intensive lobbying by the developers, the officials have authorized them to convert the lakes" to suit other purposes, said Ahmad, who cited an example of Situ Rawa Badung in Penggilingan, East Jakarta.

The government only began to improve the condition of the situ in 1994, when it established the Water Resource Conservation and Development Agency under the Ministry of Public Works.

The agency, which was changed into the Water Resource Management and Development Agency under the Ministry of Resettlement and Regional Infrastructure, was charged with improving the lakes that function as water catchment areas to avoid flood.

"Before the project was established, no institution was given the authority to handle the problem," Suwardi Soeryo Soekandar, head of the water resource management and development agency, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

But he also admitted that the process of the lake improvement was very sluggish, as such projects require a lot of money. Since the project began in 1994, only 27 lakes have been improved.

Suwardi explained that the rehabilitation of one lake needs between Rp 300 million and Rp 3 billion, depending on their size and condition.

Suwardi added that rehabilitating lakes in Jakarta was far more difficult than rehabilitating lakes in Bogor, Tangerang, and Bekasi.

He gave an example by saying that it was very difficult to relocate people living adjacent to the lakes.

"People in remote areas outside Jakarta will voluntarily move away from the land around the lakes when we began our rehabilitation projects," Suwardi said.

He added that, unlike people in Jakarta, people in other regions would not ask for compensation when they asked to be moved.