The water woes of Tepus village

The water woes of Tepus village

By Asip A. Hasani

GUNUNG KIDUL, Yogyakarta (JP): The alleys were muddy and the
half a day of downpour turned streets into small waterways.

This scene in the village of Tepus, some 25 kilometers from
the district of Wonosari, does not give the impression that the
same village faces a severe water shortage during the dry season.

It is hard to believe that this regency with its wet soil,
green plants and rice fields during the rainy season suffers a
severe drought every year.

Only the huge black stones on the hill, surrounded by teak
trees, indicate that Tepus is geographically a dry area.

Wonosari is one of the districts in the Gunung Kidul regency,
some 40 km south of Yogyakarta, which is well-known for its water
woes.

"It rains almost everyday during the rainy season here,"
Sujiati, a young mother of two, said.

"We have enough water during the rainy season," Sujiati said,
as she placed a plastic bucket under the gutter of her tiny
wooden house to collect rain water for her daily need.

With a drum and two plastic buckets full of water, Sujiati has
enough water for her family to cook and bathe for one or two
days. Like other residents, she washes clothes in a nearby pond.

There are at least three ponds in the village which are full
of water during the rainy season but they become parched in the
dry season.

Villagers, who can afford it, build concrete water storage
tanks which can hold about 5,000 liters of water. The storage
tanks are built close to the houses.

But Sujiati cannot afford to build such a storage tank.

"We need Rp 2 million to build it," she said, adding that her
husband, a fisherman who returned home once a week, would never
be able to afford it.

Aware of this, the government has several times allocated
funds to help residents in drought-stricken areas in Gunung
Kidul, including Tepus village, construct storage tanks.

Unfortunately, Sujiati's family was not among the lucky ones
who received the government's aid.

According to village head Slamet Budiono, more than half of
the 5,500 residents of Tepus are poor. "This means they do not
have adequate water storage in their houses."

When the dry season comes around, water scarcity will return
to Tepus and many other villages in Gunung Kidul.

Their stock of water will run out a month after the rainy
season ends. Villagers will then start to bathe and wash in
nearby ponds. The pond water is also given to their livestock to
drink.

The hardship peaks when the ponds dry up in some two months
after the rainy season ends.

The soil will be completely dry and leaves turn dark yellow.

Tepus villagers can buy clean water from water vendors.
Villages pay Rp 70,000 for 5,000 liters of water.

Poor families generally jointly buy water to share.

"In the dry season, I bathe only once a day with a liter of
water," Sumardi, 61, who is Sujiati's neighbor, told the Post.

Despite the fact that water is scarce, scientists estimate
that Gunung Kidul has the largest water resource compared to
other regencies in the Yogyakarta province.

Scientists are sure there is water flowing hundreds of meters
underground.

Water is scarce in Gunung Kidul because the karst soil here
cannot hold on to water, thus rain water will move down quickly
to the underground rivers.

Efforts to solve the water scarcity in Tepus and other
villages in Gunung Kidul by the local administration with the
support of the central government have been made, but only a few
succeeded.

Pumping water from natural wells in deep valleys in Gunung
Kidul, through iron pipes, to villages was part of the efforts to
deal with water shortage in the area.

Late in 1998, former president B.J. Habibie inaugurated a Rp
48 billion project to irrigate tens of acres of land, including
Tepus village, by channeling water from Blibin valley, around 25
km from Tepus, to the villages through thousands of kilometers of
steel pipes. The project, however, failed.

"Only few months after the inauguration of the project, the
water stopped flowing through the pipes," Sumardi said.

Before this project, there were several similar projects, but
they all did not succeed.

Yogyakarta Sultan Hamengkubuwono X promised to solve the water
scarcity in Gunung Kidul when he was installed as Yogyakarta
governor in 1998.

He has been trying to keep his words. But he has to
acknowledge that the natural challenges is hard to overcome.