NSW to help Jakarta with wastewater treatment

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta administration signed an agreement with the Australia's New South Wales administration yesterday to set up a central treatment system for the city's household wastewater.

The city's assistant secretary for economic and development affairs, Prawoto S. Danoemihardjo, said the project was expected to start in the 1998/1999 fiscal year and would be completed within seven years.

The project is part of the 1994 sister-state agreement between Jakarta and New South Wales and includes assistance for Jakarta's urban development and infrastructure.

Prawoto said the project, which will involve both the public and private sectors, would be undertaken by a trustee company representing a Jakarta administration syndicate and another from New South Wales.

He said that when the central system was operating, effluent from existing and planned local sewer systems would be channeled through a central tunnel to a treatment site before being dumped five to nine kilometers offshore.

The development of feeder systems of pipes from homes to the central system, will be handled separately by the sanitation agency, the public works agency and city-owned effluent treatment company Pal Jaya,

Pal Jaya is expected to be part of the Jakarta syndicate.

Governor Surjadi Soedirdja said yesterday that the development would relieve the pressure on the city's river system.

He said that at present people were "dumping wastewater everywhere" and this was having a serious environmental impact on the rivers.

"This is a reality we have to deal with day after day. If we don't solve the problem soon, it's hard to imagine when we will have a clean and healthy environment," he said.

Surjadi said many programs to prevent pollution had been undertaken, but the results were less than satisfactory.

"This partnership, which benefits both parties, is a breakthrough in solving wastewater problems," he said.

Via the project the city would learn advanced techniques of effluent treatment and pollution control, he said.

The head of the city's environmental bureau, Aboejoewono Aboeprajitno, said that household wastewater in Jakarta was particularly hazardous to the environment.

"Household wastewater, especially gray water or water polluted with detergents, contains a high level of pollutants," he said.

Dangerous substances in household wastewater include bacteria, chloride, sulfates and nitrate chemical compounds, he said.

Jakarta is able to process only one percent of 1.8 million cubic meters of household effluent a day, he said.

Pal Jaya has two wastewater treatment centers and two pumping stations in Setiabudi, Central Jakarta. It has announced plans to set up two more centers in Tomang, West Jakarta, and Kebon Melati, Central Jakarta. (ste)