Residents oppose Ciliwung-Cisadane channel

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.