Water shortage makes life hard in Bandung

Water shortage makes life hard in Bandung

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

Much of Euis Saripudin's time is spent getting water. The
46-year-old resident of Sindangjaya village, Arcamanik district
of Bandung, must always be on the alert for water flowing through
the drain in front of her house, especially during the dry
season.

If she hears water in the drain, she quickly opens a valve
connecting it to a shallow well about five meters away in front
of her house.

The water flowing from the river atop Sindanglaya hill to the
drains below is of great importance to Euis and hundreds of
Sindangjaya residents because wells in the area had dried up ever
since factories and luxury housing estates were built in the
Ujungberung area of the Bandung basin.

"Most of the wells started to dry up during the 90s," said the
mother of seven.

Residents -- who cannot afford to buy water from mobile water
traders -- depend on the river water flowing into the drains
during the dry season.

The method that Euis and her neighbors use to filter the drain
water is to channel it to a pond near their wells so the water
can be purified by seeping through the layers of soil and
eventually into their wells. This method of water retrieval has
been used by the government as a model for absorption wells in
Bandung.

The difficulty in getting water is not only caused by the dry
season, but also by the excessive use of water by industries and
commercial activities including hotels and malls.

Based on data from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral
Resources, the excessive use of ground water in the basin area
has significantly deteriorated the ground water conditions there.

Head of the Ground Water Conservation Office, Danaryanto, said
that they began recording data about ground water conditions in
the Bandung basin area in 1977.

"At that time, we drilled about 100 meters into the ground in
the Citarum river valley area. Water spurted upward as high as 20
meters then. But now in the Rancaekek area here, for example,
there is not a single drop of water after drilling for 250
meters," he said.

When calculated, the water level in a number of industrial
areas within the Bandung basin area was found to have dropped to
around 100 meters over a period of around 27 years.

The condition has been declared critical because the water
level has dropped more than 60 percent.

The ground water reserve in the Bandung basin area alone is
only 108 million cubic meters per year, but Danaryanto said the
government had not yet provided industries with tap water. As a
result, the factories still pump ground water for their
operational needs.

A researcher from the agency, Agus Taufik, discovered eight
locations where sinkholes had appeared because the ground water
which had previously supported the surface layers of soil had
been siphoned out, and this had created underground cavities
called cone depressions.

The worst affected area is located in South Cimahi, where the
land surface has sunk at least 52.4 centimeters, according to
data recorded in 2000.

Seven other locations experiencing the problem are Dayeuhkolot
(45.8 centimeters), Rancaekek (24.9 centimeters), Banjaran (17.9
centimeters), Bojongsoang (19.1 centimeters), Majalaya (15.9
centimeters), Braga (8.4 centimeters) and Ujungberung (6.6
centimeters).

An investigation conducted by the agency on factories since
1976 showed that 686 drilled wells which pumped out around
300,000 cubic meters of ground water annually, existed in South
Cimahi area in 1976.

The amount of wells increased preceding the economic crisis of
1998. The industrial boom caused the number of drilled wells to
reach 2,387, with the highest volume of ground water pumped
reaching 77 million cubic meters.

The closing of numerous factories during the economic crisis
has somewhat alleviated the pressure on ground water resources.

In 2003, the number of drilled wells in the Bandung basin area
had dropped to 2,258, decreasing the amount of water siphoned to
50 million cubic meters.

The West Java administration has considered relocating the
factories to Cipeundeuy in the west of Bandung regency, where
their impact is expected to be less damaging.