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