Pollution in city rivers worse: BPLHD
Pollution in city rivers worse: BPLHD
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Jakartans' out of sight, out of mind attitude to domestic and
industrial waste has caused the city's 13 rivers to become so
polluted that if the city administration does not clean them up
it will have to give up on its dream of riverine transportation.
The Jakarta Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD) reveals in
its official website that the pollution level in the city's
rivers is only getting worse.
Samples taken from at least 51 of its monitoring posts, which
are found at 66 riverside locations in the capital, show that
good quality water plunged to zero this year from 1 percent last
year and mildly polluted water dropped to 5 percent from 9
percent. Moderately polluted water declined to 18 percent from 19
percent in 2004.
Parameters used to test the pollution level include salinity,
turbidity, suspended particles and diluted hazardous particles
(nitrate, nitrite, chloride, ammonia, phosphate, etc.)
"The worsening trend in the quality of river water reflects
the administration's failure to do its duty in maintaining
sustainable natural resources for the community," environmental
activist Tubagus Haryo Karbiyanto told The Jakarta Post.
Tubagus, who is also a member of the Public Interest
Environmental Lawyers (PIEL), called on the administration to
start involving residents, particularly squatters living on
riverbanks, in clean-up campaigns.
"Learning from the experience of developed countries, where
the residents have become river guards in ensuring the
cleanliness of the rivers, the administration can also adopt such
a program," he said.
The city's rivers are under the supervision of at least 14
city agencies and governmental institutions:
The public works agency is responsible for dredging and
widening rivers; the municipal administration's water control
offices and the BPHLD for monitoring the water quality; the City
Sanitation Agency for removing rubbish floating on, and around,
rivers and the City Parks Agency and public order officers for
the use of riverbanks.
The role of the central government is represented by the
Ministry of Public Works as city rivers run through areas
belonging to other provinces.
Environmentalists have blamed uncoordinated programs among
those agencies and institutions for the city's heavily polluted
waterways.
Jakarta Bay in the north of the city, where all 13 rivers end,
has been treated like a dump, with reports of thousands of dead
fish and a damaged marine ecosystem alarming residents but doing
little to change their ways.