RI's river-cleaning program loses momentum

By Jaseenthaa D'silva

AMSTERDAM (JP): Indonesia's many rivers have long served as a source of water for the population. But they now carry an additional dangerous cargo: pollution. The uncontrolled dumping of dangerous chemicals by industrial firms along with the extensive use of rivers for domestic purposes have turned the country's traditional sources of water into a national problem. The extent of the pollution is so damaging that some river stretches are deemed to be biologically dead because no natural petrification can occur any more.

In 1989, government authorities responded by launching the Clean River Program, Prokasih, the first of its kind in the country. The program was based on the recognition that surface water, especially from rivers, is the principal source of water for social and economic activities in Indonesia.

Initiated as a "crash program", the principal objectives of Prokasih were to decrease the volume of pollution being discharged into waterways and to improve the overall quality of water in Indonesia's rivers. The scheme prioritized 14 different industries and selected a number of firms within each of these categories to form Prokasih's initial target group.

In its inaugural plan, Prokasih aimed to cut by half the industrial waste-water discharge of its "first-priority industries" within one year of its implementation. By the end of the fourth year, the program's target was for all priority industries to be in compliance with the acceptable standards for waste water discharge. It was then intended to expand and incorporate other types of industries and to include pollution- contributing sources from the domestic and agricultural sectors.

After several years, critics began to argue that the program was proving to be merely symbolic because the targets were too ambitious. It was argued they were biased towards capturing the imagination of anti-pollution groups rather than reflecting truly achievable ends. The targets were also seen to be designed to provide a quick-fix solution to an otherwise complex social and economic problem.

June 1996 marked the seventh year of the implementation of Prokasih. This anniversary shows Indonesia is well on the way to completing a decade of national pollution control. What will Prokasih be able to boast of at the end of its first decade?

If present results are anything to go by, then pollution control authorities must quickly reassess the effectiveness of their present strategies and weigh up the implications of these for the future.

For one, although general levels of pollution are said to have decreased in rivers, the planned target of a 50 percent reduction in waste water discharge is still far from being met. Achieving this reduction hinges on the proper monitoring of firms.

Monitoring authorities, however, have simply not yet acquired enough human resources, expertise and capital to undertake the task effectively. The current national economic boom, and in particular the growth of the manufacturing sector, compounds this critical issue. As more investment brings sector shifts and new kinds of firms into the country, so will the pollution monitoring and managing crisis increase.

Another factor concerns the scope of the Program. It still tackles only the most obvious and visible polluters; that is, large and medium-scale industrial companiess. One third of all pollution in rivers is thought to originate from industrial sources. This proportion includes the contribution of small scale firms. This, environmentalists say, is impossible to measure because no one yet knows just how many small-scale firms there are.

Equally important is the remaining two thirds of the pollution, which is estimated to come from households. Considering that both small-scale industry and households have yet to be incorporated into Prokasih, the program is in fact directed at less than one third all polluters. So the scope of the program remains rather small.

Additionally, estimates of the number of small-scale firms show that they are more numerous than their large or medium-scale counterparts. It therefore remains questionable whether a 50 percent reduction in industrial waste-water discharge is realistic and achievable even if some measure of success can be got from large and medium-scale firms.

It is difficult to guess how long Prokasih will take to return the country's rivers to the level of cleanliness we expect. One government official commented that, with funding and resources held constant, the Prokasih targets have been set 25 years ahead of their time.

With the most important element of the program being a planned reduction in the discharge of industrial waste water, the issue of domestic sewage treatment has been pushed aside.

Comparative data on water quality analysis show that Indonesia's rivers harbor some of the highest levels of E. Coli bacteria in the world. E. Coli is known to originate from human and animal waste and is responsible for many gastrointestinal and skin infections. The country's short rivers make flushing problematic and dilution a difficult process.

Considering the huge populations that are dependent on the rivers, it would make sense to incorporate domestic sewage treatment onto the priority list within Prokasih's short and long-term agendas.

In the areas of legal enforcement, almost nothing has been done to prosecute those who violate the country's sophisticated pollution-control laws. Those cases that have reached court have usually been quickly dismissed on technical grounds. So despite the fact that legal sanctions formed the cornerstone on which the program was built, industry still keeps polluting and turning a blind eye to anti-pollution legislation.

In effect, the application of legal sanctions is turning out to be less of a promise over time and more of an administratively non-enforceable feature of the program.

Coupled with this problem is the more recent shift in the overall Prokasih strategy which seems to indicate a more lax attitude toward industrial firms' transgressions despite the growing pollution crises.

The introduction of a color-coding system whereby industrial firms are awarded colors, ranging from green to black -- depending on how heavily they are polluting rivers -- leans away from the traditional plan of swiftly prosecuting those who pollute the environment. Instead, the program has swung toward a system of graduated responses.

Despite these criticisms, the program continues to receive political support from a government bent on tackling the country's pollution crisis and, to give it its due, it has achieved several noteworthy successes.

One laudable feature is that it has been able to raise national awareness of the critical need for better pollution control in Indonesia. As a national program, it has managed to capture the attention of government and non-government groups alike and in so doing has managed to create the much-needed national platform for debate of the pollution issue.

Another is that as a flagship program of the Environmental Impact Management Agency, Prokasih has provided the framework for the establishment of a specialized environmental authority in Indonesia. Through its focus and goals, the program has given the agency a specific role, function and responsibility in environmental matters.

And through the channeling of political and financial support for Prokasih the program has also managed to raise the profile of this newly-established environmental agency to one of equal importance with the country's State Ministry of Environment.

It is therefore conceivable that good planning in the future and with the passing of a period of institutional growing pains, the responsible authorities can achieve success in pollution control.

The writer is a Ph.D. fellow at the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands.