Residents oppose Ciliwung-Cisadane channel

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post/Tangerang

Residents living along the riverbanks of the Cisadane in Tangerang have objected to a central government's project involving the building a waterway connecting the Cisadane with Ciliwung river in Jakarta, for fear it may cause flooding in their area.

Taufik, 58, a prominent figure among the residents along the Cisadane riverbank in Grendeng, Karawaci, said that the municipal administration had mooted a similar plan in 2002 but all the residents had rejected it.

"The construction of Ciliwung-Cisadane channel means transferring Jakarta's floods to Tangerang. We cannot accept it," he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

"All of my life I have lived here on the Cisadane riverbank. During the rainy season, the river always overflows. This channel will just worsen the floods. Many houses will definitely be flooded out here."

Although the new project by the Ministry of Settlement and Regional Infrastructure is due to start only in 2005, the father of four said the residents would continue to oppose it.

Sudrajat, a resident of Sukasari in Karawaci, expressed the same worry that the channel would only worsen the flooding in his neighborhood.

Husein Ali, the executive director of non-governmental organization Forum Lintas Pelaku, which focuses on government projects, recently disclosed that the Ciliwung-Cisadane channel project had emerged again under a different name.

He said that the first phase of the project would be to dredge the Cisadane downstream to Bogor, West Java. Later, he said, the project would involve the widening of the river and the building of embankments.

Tony Wismantoro, director of Tangerang Government Watch, said the project would not be effective in reducing floods from the Ciliwung.

"Unless the government plants more trees along the Cisadane, the rain will erode the soil along the river which will eventually become sediment," he said on Saturday.

Tangerang municipal administration secretary Harry Mulya Zain said that the administration would decide its stance on the project after the ministry officially explained the plan to the council and the residents.

"We haven't received a notice from the ministry. But we will approve the plan if the public and the council agree with it," he told the Post.