Water bill pays scant heed to conservation

Water bill pays scant heed to conservation

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Experts criticized the contents of the water resources bill on
Wednesday for not paying enough attention to water conservation
and giving too much weight to the commercial aspects.

Budi Widianarko, a senior lecturer at Soegijapranata Catholic
University in the Central Java capital of Semarang, said that
only articles 19 to 24 -- six out of a total of 97 articles --
touched on water conservation compared to 32 articles on the
economic aspects of water.

Apart from a lack of attention to water conservation, the bill
required the issuance of executory regulations, which meant it
would take a long time before it would become fully effective,
Budi said.

"The economic aspects clearly top the bill's list of
priorities, while the environment is at the bottom of the list,"
he said during a discussion on water organized by the
International NGOs Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID).

"We are putting our environment at risk with this bill," he
added.

Harry Suryadi, a senior environmental journalist, shared
Budi's view.

"The spirit of the bill is exploitation instead of
conservation," he said.

Citing an example, the bill stipulates that water conservation
charges are obligatory, but fails to say whether some of the
money will be used to improve environmental conditions.

"These charges may end up the same as the reforestation dues
collected from forest concession holders. We all know that the
position and use of these funds is unclear," he said.

Under the bill, water management is defined as covering river
water and groundwater, but no mention is made of forests in
upstream and downstream areas.

He also said the bill failed to require environmental impact
analyses (Amdal) and social impact analyses regarding water
resource management.

The environmental critics have been intensifying their
opposition to the water resources bill, submitted by the
government to the House of Representatives (DPR) late last year.

Earlier, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had
voiced opposition to the bill for focusing too much on
privatization.

They feared that as a result of the bill, farmers would be
required to pay for irrigation water, while tap water consumers
would have to pay more for their water despite poor water quality
and service.

However, under the bill the government has ensured that small-
scale farmers will not have to pay for their water, although
large-scale farmers with export-orientated businesses will have
to pay.

The bill says the involvement of the private sector will be
limited to areas such as the supply of tap water and bottled
drinking water, areas where there is at present a lack of clear
regulation.