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.