RI's river-cleaning program loses momentum

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.