Toll road, housing blamed for floods
Toll road, housing blamed for floods
Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
State Minister of the Environment Nabiel Makarim has said the
construction of both the toll road, which leads to the Soekarno-
Hatta airport and the Pantai Indah Kapuk real estate are a cause
of the city's flooding problems.
"The establishment of the real estate was opposed by Emil
Salim (former minister of the environment). Both projects should
never have taken place," Nabiel told a media conference after
accompanying past winners of the Kalpataru Award to meet
President Megawati Soekarnoputri on Thursday.
The Pantai Indah Kapuk (PIK) waterfront complex was built on
800 hectares of formerly protected mangrove forest in West
Jakarta. It has caused flooding due to the reclamation of the
swamp by its developer, PT Mandara Permai.
Despite persistent criticisms from environmental activists,
the city's environmental impact agency (BAPEDALDA) approved the
establishment of the real estate in 1995.
Since then the Sedyatmo toll road, which leads to the airport,
has always been deluged after heavy rain. The toll operator has
elevated the freeway from its original construction, but Nabil,
however, doubts its effectiveness.
The developer of PIK has denied allegations that its project
has caused flooding on the toll road.
As for the regular flooding in the rest of the capital, which
has always left hundreds of houses inundated and caused major
traffic congestion, Nabiel blamed the development of water
catchment areas in and around the city, including in Bogor and
Puncak, West Java, for the sake of villa construction.
"It is impossible to avoid flooding now ... we can only take
preventive action after the rainy season is over," he added.
One of the solutions, Nabiel asserted, was to plant trees for
water catchment, although the effort would not pay off in the
immediate future.
"Planting trees would at least curb the potential for
flooding. But this process will take some time as we must wait
for the trees to grow," he said.
He said flooding in certain areas across the country was also
inevitable due to environmental degradation and would only ease
after the rainy season had ended.