Sewage workers do all the dirty work

Sewage workers do all the dirty work

This is the final of a three-part-series on the environmental
problems caused by the dumping untreated sewage in the capital
and the waterway and marine pollution it causes.

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta

Not everything we flush down the toilet successfully disappears.
Sometimes, our plumbing gets blocked and we're forced to call
call city sewage workers.

When they get such a call, Agus Warta, Ipung and Jay get into
their truck and head toward the callers' homes.

"We are ready to serve anyone in any location reachable by our
trucks," Agus told The Jakarta Post, which joined his operation
recently.

The Jakarta Sanitation Agency operates 36 6,000-liter sewage
trucks that can reach most houses and buildings along big roads,
while the agency's district offices have 83 smaller 2,000-liter
trucks, which can get to houses down narrow alleyways. Both sized
trucks are equipped with at least 50 meters of suction hose.

The fee for the service is Rp 20,000 (US$2.15) per 1,000
liters of sewage, with a minimum of 2,000 liters for the smaller
trucks, as set out in the Bylaw No. 3/1999 on regional
retribution.

"Customers calling for the service of a 6,000-liter truck must
pay a minimum fee for 4,000 liters of sewage," Agus said.

Arriving at a housing complex in Halim Perdanakusumah, East
Jakarta, the workers got down to business. While Ipung located
the customer's problematic septic tank, Agus and Jay prepared the
truck's vacuum machine and uncoiled its suction hose.

Since the septic tank had no inspection manhole, Ipung had to
pry open its top to insert the suction hose. He also used several
buckets of water and a long bamboo stick lying near by to dilute
and stir the sludge inside the tank, to prevent unnecessary lumps
from clogging the hose.

The three used no protective boots, gloves or masks while they
worked. They simply rolled up their shirt sleeves and drained the
sludge out of the tank for some 15 minutes.

"It's obviously dirty work. We have to occasionally pull out
the suction hose from inside the tank and wipe it clean with our
bare hands," Jay said. "But we've eventually gotten used to it,
and we no longer feel disgusted or lose our appetite when we
think about it."

Finishing their round, Agus then drove the truck to the
sanitation agency's nearest sewage treatment plant in Pulo
Gebang, East Jakarta.

At the plant, several other trucks were seen dumping their
loads into one of the plant's seven aeration ponds.

"Some 60 trucks dump their sewage here every day, including
those from private sewage companies," said the plant's field
operational head, Ismail Faisal.

There are currently 19 private sewage companies in the city,
operating a total of 36 trucks. The companies must pay Rp 5,000
for each 1,000 liters of sewage they dump at the plant.

The ponds, which can hold up to 300,000 liters each, were the
first stage of the treatment process, Faisal said.

However, only one pond can be used each day, as it takes a
week for the plant's blower pumps to break down the organic waste
contained in the sewage by continuously injecting it with some
3,000 liters of air per second. After that, the half-treated
sewage gets discharged into a chain of sludge sedimentation
ponds, each capable of holding up to 3.6 million liters of waste.

"After about a month, it can be safely discharged into the
nearby waterways. The remaining sediment can also be used as
fertilizer," Faisal said. The plant's natural sewage treatment
did not use chemicals, he said. Several artesian wells are built
into the plant's five-hectare compound to monitor E coli bacteria
contamination.

Despite the plant's operations, many sewage truck crews still
dump raw sewage into the city's rivers.

"I've seen the practice myself several times," said Mukhtarom,
a field operator of the agency's plant in Duri Kosambi, West
Jakarta. Mukhtarom said dumping was most common in Cilandak,
South Jakarta; Tanjung Duren, West Jakarta; and Kelapa Gading,
North Jakarta. "Ironically, some of the trucks belong to the
agency; they're not only from private companies," he said.

The Post observed an agency sewage truck dumping raw sewage
into the Krukut River, outside the drinking water production
plant in Cilandak. The truck crew said it was more convenient for
them to dump the raw sewage into the river than driving it
further away to the treatment plants. They said they had to pay
Rp 2,000 to "thugs" to be allowed to dump the sewage.

Sanitation agency head of operations Indra Wijaya called on
the public to report such practices.

"We will immediately revoke (the operators') licenses and
prosecute them."

However, the problem remains. And environmental groups say it
will persist unless strong action is taken to save the city's 13
rivers, which are already heavily polluted by raw sewage. Sewage
trucks dumping their untreated loads are only worsening the
situation.

I-box
Having sewage problems? Call the following numbers:
City Sanitation Agency head office.......8092616, 8092744
East Jakarta office......................8196667
North Jakarta office.....................494663
Central Jakarta office...................341290
West Jakarta office......................5663524
South Jakarta office.....................7990379