jakarta globe - water worries

8/8/2019 Jakarta Globe - Water Worries

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Water Worries4 Jakarta Globe Saturday/Sunday, July 25/26, 2009

Red AlertGovernment maps o how Jakartaspopulation has grown in a decadeand is projected to grow in the next.Lightest blue areas are less than10% urban, darkest red over 90%

N

urimas days oflugging water areover. Ever sincethe 49-year-oldhousewife movedto the NorthJakarta slum ofUtan Jati in 1980,

shes faced the daily headache ofgoing out with jerry cans to buyclean water from the local watertruck for cooking, drinking and

bathing her five children.Those who couldnt afford to buy

water from the syndicate of vendors who charge 20 to 40 t imes morethan what rich Jakartans pay forpiped water used foul river waterto wash their clothes or clean theirhouses, or begged for well waterfrom neighbors. But for drinkingwater, they had no choice but to buyfrom the vendors.

Even after PT Palyja, one of thecitys two private water companies,installed a giant distribution tanknearby a few years ago, Nurima, wholikes to wear brightly-colored jilbabsand even brighter red lipstick, stillneeded a pushcart to get her jerrycans back home.

Now, however, she and herneighbors need only walk over to thewall of their ramshackle homes andturn a knob. Since March, pipedwater has come to Utan Jati.

Its so much cheaper, Nurimasaid, looking down at the shiny newwater meter in her front yard, madepossible through a grant programrun by the World Bank and Palyja. Itmakes everything easier, and thewater is cleaner.

Cheaper, yes, but really clean? Notexactly.

A Grim and Dirty Journey

The journey that ends in the bucketsthat Nurima puts under her waterspigot begins about 85 kilometers tothe southeast, in the foothills ofWest Java and the Jati Luhurreservoir and its two billion squaremeters of reasonably clean water.

By the time it reaches NorthJakarta, as well as the fashionablehomes of Central and South Jakarta,the water is not potable.

The water gets increasingly filthyas it travels down a 68-kilometercanal filled with trash and humanfeces and into water treatment plantsin the city, where its purified and

becomes drinkable again. But once itgoes into the citys 5,500-kilometersof leaky underground pipes, thewater can be contaminated bysewage, solid waste and salt water,making it undrinkable.

Jakarta is facing urbanizationthat is straining its infrastructure. Itis straining it beyond belief, saidHongjoo Hahm, lead infrastructurespecialist at the World Bank inJakarta. Jakarta has to learn to livewith water.

No argument there. City dwellerscan survive floods and build giantwalls to block tides from the Java Seafrom inundating their homes, butthey cannot survive unless they haveclean water to drink. Jati Luhurreservoir is literally Jakartas lifeline,supplying up to 60 percent of itswater needs, but problems with itslong-term quality and consistentflow keep water experts up at night.

Water from the reservoir reachesJakarta though the West TarumCanal. However, it enters the canal viathe Citarum River, Javas largest and

most polluted waterway. The garbageand raw sewage of millions of people,as well as waste from factories, isdumped into the Citarum, and assome of the river is diverted into theWest Tarum, its toxins follow.

Floating islands of waste block thecanals flow by up to 90 percent insome areas. Some canal water is alsodiverted for irrigation, meaning thatpolluted water is used to grow crops.

Then there are the humansettlements, both legal and illegal,along the canal itself. The homes,restaurants, mini-factories and

brothels all use the canal as a toilet,

shower, trash can, even burial site.On a recent visit, a Jakarta Globereporter saw a headless chicken flowdown the canal and disappear.

Frighteningly, 25 percent to 30percent of water going into the citysplants doesnt meet official healthand quality standards for untreatedwater. The feeling among thepeople who live along the river isthat the river is their backyard, saidBudhi Santoso, a senior staffer at theNational Development PlanningBoard (Bappenas). He jokingly notedthe helicopter problem along the

West Tarum a nickname for themakeshift wooden toilets hangingover the banks of the canal.

Bappenas and the AsianDevelopment Bank are set to begin along-term $3.5 billion over 15 to 20

years integrated rehabilitationprogram in the Citarum River Basin.This will involve cleaning andrepairing the banks of the river andcanal, relocating thousands of illegalsquatters and launching a massiveantipollution education program forlocal communities.

The story of the Citarum islinked to the story of Jakarta, Budhisaid. If we have a good supply of rawwater, it will improve water qualityand quantity.

Theres talk that the project,scheduled to begin this year with aninitial infusion of $50 million in

funding, will be a model for both thecountry and Southeast Asia.

Another proposal is a 70-kilometerclosed pipeline to deliver water fromJati Luhur, which would keep outcontaminants but cost $187 million.

Avoiding Hard Questions

Infrastructure analysts say thatgovernment officials, after avoidingJakartas water problems for years,are now gung-ho about projects atall levels. The reason, they say a bitcynically, is because Indonesia nowhas a system of direct elections andpoliticians have to answer to voters.

Whatever the motivation, theirtiming is perfect. In April, JakartaGovernor Fauzi Bowo signed anorder for a six- to 16-fold increase intariffs on groundwater extraction byfactories, hotels, offices, shoppingmalls and large homes.

The move, to make the tariffsequal to the price of piped water, is afirst step in a multiyear process ofweaning the city off of groundwater,the overuse of which has causedsome parts of Jakarta to subside byas much as 25 centimeters a year.The World Bank warns that North

Jakarta could be overrun by sea tidesby 2018 if nothing is done.

In 1994, the World Bank said,Stop the g roundwater extraction.[The city administration] didntlisten, Hahm said. The messagehasnt changed in 15 years.

Aside from the sinking cityproblem, some of the citysfreshwater aquifers have beenunable to replenish themselves fastenough because of excessivegroundwater extraction. As a result,some city residents complain ofseawater seeping into their wells.

Nani, a 33-year-old housewifewho lives in North Jakarta, recalledpeeling soap off her childrens skinduring bath time due to the highlevel of salt in the well water. Nowher house has piped water.

For cleaning, we even used

The SupplyHow Our Water Is Fouled on Its Way to the Tap

2020

2009

2000

Jakartas dysunctional watersystem hurts the poor the mostReport Joe Cochrane

40%o homes inJakarta haveno piped water

The journey that ends in your bucket. From let: Much o Jakartas water gets its start in the Jati Luhur reservoir, beore lowing into the trash-clogged Citarum River, where riverside toilets are a common sight. The water


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5Water WorriesSaturday/Sunday, July 25/26, 2009 Jakarta Globe

groundwater, she said, eventhough we knew it was salty.

Government officials and waterexperts say that Jati Luhur, with thepresent state of its delivery system,could not meet all of Jakartas waterneeds if all groundwater extractioncame to a sudden halt. Shockingly,only about 60 percent of Jakartahomes are hooked up to piped water,and as many as 30 percent rely solelyon groundwater. The rest aredependent on water truck operators.

An immediate total ban ongroundwater extraction could causechaos due to water shortages, but

that is hardly worth worrying aboutsince a ban would be impossible toenforce unless special teams wentdoor-to-door demanding thatresidents shut down their wells.

We cannot do it suddenly, it mustbe done gradually, said IwanNursyirwan, director general forwater resources at the Ministry ofPublic Works.

Even with a grace period ofseveral years, the city would stillneed additional sources of surfacewater for household demand. Thecentral government is currently

negotiating a loan from South Koreato build a new reservoir in Karian,West Java, to service Jakarta.

Private Sector Solutions

Bappenas is also promoting private-sector infrastructure, noting thatthere are currently 25 water-relatedprojects worth a total of $775 millionin various stages. The boards aim isto get private companies to buildand operate new reservoirs andwater delivery systems and sellwater in bulk to local governments.

Our recent calculations showthat we lack infrastructuredevelopment and will not reach our[United Nations] MillenniumDevelopment Goals by 2015 unlesswe double investment, said Bastary

Buckets, wells and open troughs characterise daily access to water or many city-dwellers, including this amily in Penjaringan, North Jakarta. JG Photo/Safir MakkiContinued overlea

then lows into the citys tr eatment plants, where most o the impu rities are removed. But in most cases, Jakartas leaky system o pipes ouls the supply again b eore it reaches your tap. JG Photos/Safir Makki, Ariadi Hikmal


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Pandji Indra, director of Bappenasspublic-private partnership program.

He noted that in the 1980s, duringthe Suharto era, the nation spent 5.5percent of its gross domestic producton infrastructure development, butonly 2.2 percent over the past five

years. Malaysia spends 7 percent, bycomparison, and Vietnam 4 percent.

Electricity is a priority, but so iswater, Bastary said. In Jakarta,Bandung, Bali, we will face a watercrisis in the next five years.

Theres no shortage of skeptics

about public-private partnershipsfor water infrastructure. Some saythat the idea is upside-down, that theprivate sector shouldnt be sellingwater to the government. Others saythat Indonesia would be hard-pressed to find companies willing toinvest $100 million to build areservoir unless they had the soleauthority to set bulk water tariffs,which is obviously a touchy issue.

You cant get the private sectorto put money in until they havesecurity of contract and they can geta reasonable rate of return on their

investment, said Scott Younger,president commissioner of GlendalePartners, a Jakarta-based projectdevelopment and consulting f irm.

He said that the city also neededto think more creatively about watersources, including rainwater.

Aart van Nes, a civil engineer whoconsults for the city administrationon water issues, noted that about halfof the water from Jakartas treatmentplants doesnt even get to customers

because of leaks in the distributionsystem and illegal hookups.

Getting the Hookup

Jakartas water supply is directlylinked to the ability of the citys twoprivately run water providers, Palyjaand PT Aetra Air Jakarta, to hook upmore homes to piped water.

To expand coverage, you needadditional water. Even if you haltillegal connections and leakage, itsnot enough, said Philippe Folliasson,president director of Palyja.

Since the city signed contractswith the two water providers in 1997,

connections to Jakartas piped waternetwork have nearly doubled toaround 800,000. But the expansioneffort is in danger of faltering becausethe city hasnt approved an increase inwater tariffs in two and a half years.

Supporters of tariff increases who appear to be in the majority

both in and outside the government note that the citys poor who donthave piped water pay 20 times morethan the current tariff rate to watertruck gangs, and inf lation alonedictates that rates must be increased.

The only way forward is to expandthe network, increase connectionsand make sure everyone has access topiped water, Folliasson said. Raisingtariffs thats the only solution.

Indonesia is not the only countryto face this quandary, experts say.Globally, the poor pay far more forwater because they must get itthrough informal sources. But theyalso say that Indonesian politicians,specifically the Jakarta City Council,are more worried about a backlashfrom middle-class and high-income

voters if their home water bills go up.

These politicians somehowbelieve that water should be free. They have this skewed notion thatthey are doing a public service bykeeping water prices artificiallylow, Bastary said. But all theyredoing is preventing poor people fromgetting access to piped water.

Ahmad Lanti, the foundingcommissioner of Jakartas waterregulatory body, said, This is a verydifficult puzzle. If you want to raisethe tariff on poor people to createequilibrium with rich people, therewill be social unrest even thoughthey are paying more for vendorwater. Its a vicious cycle.

Fortunately, more and more slumdwellers are escaping. Waterconnections and meters subsidized

by the Palyja-World Bank schemeare also being installed in MuaraBaru, North Jakarta, arguably thecitys poorest area, despite threats of

violence from local water vendors.Back in Utan Jati, Sriyati, 37,

proudly shows her June water bill ofRp 20,000 ($2), about half what sheused to give to vendors. But it will

take time for her to get used to thepower of being a paying customer.Last week there was a problem,

and we didnt have any water for aday, she said. We just waited.When told that she had the r ight tocall customer service to complain,she seemed stunned. Then shesmiled at the thought.

The only way orward is toexpand the network and makesure everyone has access topiped water. Raising tarifs thats the only solution.

Philippe Folliasson, PT Palyja president director

50%o treated waterleaks out beoregetting to users

In the neighborhood unit calledRW 12 in North JakartasPenjaringan district, residentslive in the most crowded area inthe capital, i not Indonesia.

While a neighborhoodusually consists o severalhundred households, RW 12 is

overflowing with 3,201 o them,according to official figures. Based onan average o our people per tinyhouse, there are at least 12,804

people crammed into these 23hectares, although one local aidworker estimated the population atcloser to 38,000.

Its no surprise that lie in thisormer swamp is pretty dismal.Seawater invades groundwater wellsdue to excess extraction in NorthJakarta, and pollution is righteningbecause there is an almost completelack o sanitation acilities.

To add insult to injury, thecity-owned water operator, PDAM,used to reuse to provide waterconnections to most o RW 12 becauseits residents are illegal squatters.

Thats the official line. Under thetable, PDAM workers, however, havebeen known to install connections toanyone who can aford to pay, localresidents say. Residentialentrepreneurs Jakartaslegendary street mafia, or preman exploited the situation by sellingclean water to residents rom theirown illegal house connections. Watercosts Rp 500 (50 cents) or a 19-liter

jerry can or two ull buckets, and Rp1,500 or a cart that holds 120 liters.

Programs by nongovernmentalorganizations to connect such slumsto the citys piped water system areoten met with threats and sometimesviolence by these low-end operators.As a result, Jakartas poor pay 20 to 40times more or their water than richresidents who have a connection.

Our amily spends about Rp

60,000 a month, and its troublingbecause we have to go back and orthand queue or water, said Tona, 45, ahousewie and mother o three.

Leon Sumihar, who runs the Wateror All program in the nearby MuaraBaru neighborhood, said that premanregularly threaten workers rom hiscompany, Palyja, one o the citys twoprivately-run water providers, whoare installing connections and metersthere under a World Bank program.

The preman operating watersales are low income, low educationand they dont care about policemen.They dont care about anybody,Sumihar said.

When the connection programwas launched in Muara Baru, a mobo gun-toting water vendorsprotested and smashed cars. Theyreused to shut down their waterselling businesses even ater beingofered compensation because theprofits are so good.

The connection program finallyappears to have the upper hand inMuara Baru, where residents now

pay around Rp 20,000 a month orpiped water. Under the tarifprogram, they receive 15 cubicmeters o water per month at thelowest rate, Rp 1,050 per cubic meter.I they use more, the rate goes up.

Back in Penjaringan, RW 12 finallyreceived connections or 60households three months ago undera program involving PDAM and theInternational Development ResearchCenter o Canada. The program,

called the Communal Master Meter, issimilar to the one in Muara Baru,where residents get 24-hour pipedwater and are billed monthly. It wasno easy task to convince watervendors to accept the program.

It took us about a year becausewe had to approach and explain tothose people, said VincentHermanus Pooroe, an urban waterand sanitation officer rom MercyCorps, an international aidorganization working in the area.

Some local residents and aidworkers claim that PDAM staf arealso unhappy with the master meterprogram because they receivedpayofs rom the water vendors toallow them to stay in business.

Theyre araid to lose theirincome, but they have enjoyed profitsor dozens o years. Its time orpeople to enjoy cheaper water, saidSutarman, a community leader,reerring to vendors and the PDAMworkers who exploited the situation.

As part o the program, anagreement was reached allowingvendors to continue selling their

water while the majority o thehouses wait or connections.The problem is that the water flow

is low, only about 12 cubic meters a day,which is less than the expected 17.4cubic meters rom the initial design.One recent weekend, the water didntflow at all, orcing residents to go backto the vendors. Hera Diani

Pay Up: How the Water Maia Controls Access

From previous page

Poor homeowners without metered

connections pay more or water.

Pipe-illed drums sold to them at relatively punishing prices are many peoples only access to clean water. JG Photo/Safir Makki


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S

arini sat at thebackdoor of herone-room shack

beside thedeceptively calmMuara Kali Adem

River in NorthJakarta. Under ascorching sun one recent afternoon,the 40-year-old wrapped herself in adiscolored piece of batik clothdisplaying the motif of her nativeIndramayu in West Java.

She shares her home of usedwooden planks with her husbandand two children. Together, theyve

braved the wrath of the Muara KaliAdem, including the great flood of2007, and they wonder when thenext one will come.

I remember the last big flood. It

was about 10 p.m. and suddenly thewater level rose up to our chests. Weall rushed out, trying to saveourselves, she said.

The residents of the illegalneighborhood, a squatter area on theflood plain of the river, savedthemselves that night by crawling tosafety through a hole in a thin wallseparating the slum from an upscalehousing complex next door.

We built tents in the streets.

When the water subsided, we allcame back here. Where else couldwe go? Sarini said.

Sarini and her family are amongmore than 150 squatters livingalongside the Muara Kali Adem in

this community. Across NorthJakarta, there are 43,480households, or more than 150,000people, living in various squattersettlements, many of them nearrivers and canals, according to an

April 2008 report by MercyCorps, aninternational aid organization.

Ester Rahayu also lives in NorthJakarta, but the 48-year-old stocktrader and a mother of two lives inthe upscale Kelapa Gading area. Shealso remembers the 2007 floods. Iwas on my way to take my son toschool, but the cars engine stopped,

and then we had to walk in knee-high dirty water, she said.

Unlike Sarini, Ester and herfamily were able to check into anearby hotel to escape the floods.Though the flood was traumatic andinconvenient, Ester said she is notabout to move out of Kelapa Gading.Floods are part of life in Jakarta where else do you want to go?

Although they are worlds apart rich and poor Ester and Sarini

are linked by the massive flood thathit the capital in early February 2007,killing 52 people, displacing 450,000residents and leaving untoldnumbers sickened by illnessesranging from diarrhea to denguefever. The National Development

Planning Agency estimatedeconomic losses from the flood at

Rp 8.8 trill ion ($871.2 million).While Jakarta has been shaken

by the occasional earthquake,flooding has so far been the citysgravest threat. Severe floods in

January 1996, February 2002 andFebruary 2007 were particularly

dreadful. In 2007, almost 60 percentof the city was plunged into water upto seven meters deep in some areas.

North Jakarta, where Sarini andEster live, bore the brunt of both the2002 and 2007 floods, when 39percent of the district was underwater. Those floods, triggered by 72hours of continuous rain, finallyforced the central government andcity officials to pay serious attentionto this recurring problem, buttackling urban flooding is incrediblycomplex. In a democratic era,

however, city leaders can either dosomething to tackle flooding or facebeing voted out of office.

Nature vs. Mankind

Tarjuki, the head of water resourcemaintenance with the citys PublicWorks Department, says the factorsthat cause the flooding issue aremultilayered, and are underpinned

by the fact that 40 percent of the citylies below sea level. Second, 13 riversenter and flow through the city fromBogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi,in West Java and Banten provinces.

Bad habits and sheer humanpressure makes matters worse.

We can always build newinfrastructure such as canals or Datadams, but in my opinion, its hardestto control peoples behavior, whichplays a major role in Jakartasfloods, Tarjuki said.

Rapid urban development is reallythe heart of the problem. As the

The FloodsA Swelling City Is at the Root of the ProblemChecking development and

migration are key actors infighting back rising waters

Report Dewi Kurniawati

Floods like this one in Kelapa Gading in 2007, which submerged main roads and

dozens o blocks, are likely to continue unless development is halted. JG Photo

Continued overlea


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20,000squatters livingon the banks oPluit reservoir

Lasemi recalls when shefirst moved to the bankso the Pluit reservoir inNorth Jakarta six yearsago.

In those days, Icouldnt eat anything,the 41-year-old said,

recalling the stench coming rom tonso solid waste choking the reservoirsgate, which lies about a meter romthe backdoor o the one-room shantythat is home to her and her husband,

a bajaj (auto-rickshaw) driver, andtheir our children. When I firstmoved in here, the piles o solid wastewere higher than my house.

Lasemi, who came to Jakarta romCentral Java in 1995, is one o about20,000 squatters who livesuspended over a portion o thereservoir. For the Rp 2 million ($200)the couple pay a year in rent, they geta close-up view o the reservoir gateand the layers o garbage that clog it.

Were all used to floods, she said.The city government would like to

move Lasemi and other squattersaway rom rivers and reservoirs aspart o a World Bank-unded dredgingprogram to ease flooding. The bank,however, does not allow orcedrelocation o squatters because suchmoves are considered to beimpractical and inhumane. Butbuilding new homes or the estimated

150,000 people who live nearwaterways illegally is costly anddifficult, city officials say.

For now, people like Juliawati, 36,who lives in the Pantai Indah Kapukarea o North Jakarta, have nointention o moving. A native Betawi,she has lived along the Muara KaliAdem River since 1990 with herunemployed husband and amily.They eke out a living and say its thebest they can find.

The city government has raided

the area several times, but thecommunity o about 600 peoplekeeps coming back. Everything isree here. We dont have to pay rent,and weve got a water supply,Juliawati said. This is ar better thanroaming the city streets.

But living ree comes at a price.Floods are a reality o lie. Thesquatters survive by building theirshacks as high as they can withscavenged planks.

Juliawati and Lasemi likely do notgrasp that they are partially to blame

or the flooding that plagues theirlives. Illegal settlements nearwaterways jam rivers with garbagethat leads to sedimentation,ultimately blocking the rivers flow.

The Jakarta Emergency DredgingInitiative, partially unded by a $150million loan rom the World Bank,mandates that the city resettle the

squatters. The bank does not want tosee people sufer injustice as a resulto river dredging.

I you afect people, you have torelocate them this project shouldnot make them worse of, said IdaAyu Dharmapatni, a senior operationsofficer at the World Bank who isinvolved in the relocation program.She and her team are hoping to reachan agreement on resettlement withcity officials by September.

Technically, i we have to enorce

the law, we can wipe out thosesquatters in a day, said Heru Utara,head o public acilities or the NorthJakarta district. But this problem isar more complex than that.

Opting or the humane approach,Heru said the city administrationneeded massive unding to providelow-cost housing or the Pluitreservoir squatters. Its not missionimpossible, but where do we get themoney rom? he asked.

Heru cited a successul relocation

program under ormer GovernorSutiyosos administration in 2003, inwhich thousands o squatters weremoved rom the banks o the AngkeRiver to apartments in Cengkareng.

To be able to do that again, weneed good locations and a hugeamount o unds, he said.

In Jakarta, however, buildinglow-cost apartments near the Pluitreservoir would be very expensive.Building housing too ar afield wouldbe pointless because the squatterswork near their homes and would

balk at leaving their neighborhoods.Despite the potential hardships,many squatters still yearn or a airand dignified solution.

We never dreamed o having thiskind o lie, and we will surely moveout i the government can providehousing or us, Juliawati said. Dewi Kurniawati

Dredging the Rivers Means Uprooting Thousands o Squatters

Residents getting erried out o Muara Baru in North Jakarta ater a peak tide

inundated the area in January this year.. JG Photo/Ariadi Hikmal

Stilt houses built by squatters rom scavenged materials surround the Pluit reservoir in North Jakarta. An estimated 150,000 peopl e live illegally near the citys waterways. Antara Photo


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Jakarta is a two-facedcity, people say. Onone side are themodern office towersand luxury shoppingmalls; on the otherare overcrowded,squalid slums.

No where is this contrast moreapparent than in Kelapa Gading,North Jakarta. Right next to theJalan Yos Sudarso overpass is Mal

Artha Gading shopping center:attractive and colorful, embellishedwith giant animal figures.

Next door, separated by just anarrow street, is Pulau Kandang,where the blackened water of the

Sunter Canal runs. On land that usedto be a swamp stand dozens ofhouses on wooden stilts, which haveto be patched frequently to preventthem from falling into the rancidwater below. The ground is coveredin human feces and garbage.

People here think that its OK tothrow garbage underneath theirhouses, as the garbage willeventually harden and turn intosoil, said Aduma Lestari, asanitation engineer with the TirtaLestari Foundation, a local NGO.

Here, clean water is considered a

luxury for residents, who are mostlygarbage scavengers living on Rp20,000 ($2) or less a day, and so areclean toilets, which are communal.

Housewife Nurhayati, 32, herhusband and their two youngchildren share a 1.5-square-meter

bathroom with three other families,splitting the Rp 100,000 monthlywater bill.

The water connectionsometimes breaks, so we have to buyit from a vendor for Rp 3,000 a

bucket, Nurhayati said. Sometimes

we ask from a neighbor who has adrilled water well underneath hishouse. But the quality is so bad thatwe have to filter it with sand. Stil l, itsnot drinkable.

The bathroom itself is said to beconnected to a septic tank, which is

basically a pit. The waste is nottreated or processed at all.

Nurhayati said her children are

prone to diarrhea and skin diseases,especially during the flood season.The entire Kelapa Gading areafloods annually.

The burden of poor urbansanitation is something Nurhayatishares with millions of otherJakartans, regardless of theireconomic situation. Experts say thatconfusion about which government

body is in charge, lack of politicalwill and public awareness, as well as

budget shortages, have led to ashocking absence of modern andclean public sanitation across the

capital.It shows that the two-sided city

analogy is much more thancosmetic. Jakarta may look moremodern every day, but its sewagesystem is still almost nonexistent.Less than 3 percent of the entire city homes, offices, malls has asewage connection, the second-lowest coverage in Southeast Asiaafter the Laotian capital Vientiane,according to the World Bank. And itis even worse than it sounds:

Vientianes population is less than

400,000, while Jakartas is morethan nine million.The absence of a sewage system

has knock-on effects. Withdwellings relying on septic tanksthat are often little more thantraditional pits or gutters,contamination of groundwater is aconstant problem.

Some 20 percent of Jakartans do

not even have access to a toilet,forcing them to use whatever spacethey can find, according to theMinistry of Public Works. Theministrys 2008 data showed that1.46 million households in the capitaldispose of raw sewage into closedgutters, 784,568 dump it into opengutters, while 56,139 householdsflush their waste directly into theground or nearby rivers and canals.

Nugroho Tri Utomo, head of thesanitation development technical

team at the National Development

Planning Board (Bappenas), said 714tons of human waste go directly intothe ground or waterways each daywithout being processed. Its equalto 140 elephants, so go figure,Nugroho joked darkly.

Makeshit Inrastructure

Jakarta does have a makeshiftsystem of gutters, but unfortunatelymost are not connected to sewagetreatment plants. Theres only onetreatment plant in Jakarta, locatedin Setiabudi, South Jakarta, andwaste treatment facilities are only

available in Pulo Gebang, EastJakarta, and Duri Kosambi, WestJakarta. The waste from gutters ischanneled into the citys 13 rivers orcanals, causing massive pollution.

Eighty percent of shallow wateris polluted with E. coli bacteria,indicating fecal contamination,Nugroho said.

As a result, he said, illnessescaused by poor sanitation are high,especially among children.Nationwide, children under the ageof 5 suffer on average 2.5 cases of

diarrhea per year. It inflicts a doublewhammy on poor families becausethey lose income from lost work daysif they or their children are sick, andthey also spend more on health care.

And the sanitation crisis is notconfined to Jakarta alone it is anationwide problem. According toEconomic Impacts of Sanitation in

Southeast Asia, published in August2008 by the World Banks Water and

Sanitation Program, Indonesia losesmore than Rp 58 tril lion every year,or the equivalent of Rp 265,000 forevery man, woman and child, due tolack of sanitation. Health and waterresources contribute the most tooverall economic losses, as the publicis forced to seek medical treatmentmore often and pay more for accessto clean water.

The economic impact fromillness alone is $3.3 billion per year.Poor sanitation causes at least 120million cases of disease and 50,000premature deaths annually,according to the World Bank report.Diarrhea-related diseases are themost common, with 89 million casesnationwide every year, followed byskin disorders and trachoma, acontagious bacterial conjunctivitisthat can lead to blindness.

Poor sanitation also contributessignificantly to water pollution,increasing the cost of safe water forhouseholds and reducing fishnumbers in rivers and lakes. Theeconomic cost of polluted waterattributed to poor sanitation is $1.5

billion a year. In addition, thecountry loses $1.2 billion annually inwelfare losses the productivetime lost from having to walk to andqueue at public toilets.

There is also an estimated loss of$166 million a year in tourism astravelers warn others away fromplaces with poor sanitation.Productive land lost to pollution addsanother $96 million in annual losses.

Experts say that other majorcities like Bandung, Solo, Denpasarand Medan are in fact ahead ofJakarta because they have begun

fixing and expanding their existingsewage systems. They also say thecitys administration has been slowin moving sanitation up from the

bottom of its l ist of priorities.

Fast Growth, Poor Planning

The paucity of sewage connectionsin Jakarta, experts say, is the resultof bad urban planning and fastgrowth. Sewage systems should be

built in the early stages ofdevelopment, but the onlyconnections in Jakarta are in parts

of Kuningan and Sudirman districts.There have been efforts todevelop an underground pipedsewage system. In 1991, the Jakartaadministration established acity-owned sewage company, PDPAL Jaya. Not long after that, thecity, working with the JapaneseInternational Cooperation Agency

The SewagePoor Sanitation Means Illness and High CostsA city drowning

in its own filth,Jakarta needsto address itssewage issuesReport Hera Diani

56,000householdsflush theirsewage straightinto the ground

Makeshit public toilets at Angke Beach contribute to pollution in North Jakartas waters. JG Photo/Afriadi Hikmal


11/16


and World Bank, designed a master

plan for the project.Nearly two decades have passed

but the master plan never came tofruition, said Setyo Duhkito, head ofthe program and developmentdivision at PD PAL Jaya.

The first problem, he said, is theexpense. A single connection costs

between $600 and $800 a home,although the price goes down foreach additional home hooked up tothe system.

A heavily-traveled and denselypopulated urban area like Jakarta

would also require a special pipejacking system to build sewers in away that would not disrupt traffic.This system is also expensive,costing between Rp 6 million andRp 10 million per meter of piping.

Setyo estimated that the totalinvestment needed for a citywidesewer system would come to about

Rp 14 trillion still far less than the

nationwide economic losses causedby poor sanitation. It is indeed a lotof money, but its necessary given theimpacts on health and theenvironment, he said. However,the Jakarta administration has nevermade it a priority, thinking that asanitation project is only an expensethat doesnt generate profits.

Setyo also pointed to thebureaucratic nightmare in whichcity agencies overlap on sanitationissues, such as the Health and PublicWorks departments, and have

limited direct contact.Its very difficult to come upwith the same vision, like whostaking care of the funding and whosin charge of the technical part,Setyo said. The bottom line is, thecommitment and awareness of theJakarta administration is seriouslylacking.

Budi Yuwono, director general of

housing at the Public WorksMinistry, said while other citieswere expanding their systems,authorities in Jakarta seemedindifferent and instead focused onother infrastructure projects likeroads and public transportation.

On the other hand, the issue ofsanitation should not just be theresponsibility of the localgovernment, given the amount of

budget needed, Budi said. Thecentral government must increaseinvestment in sanitation. At the

moment, there is no special budgetallocation for sanitation.

Is There a Solution?

Jakarta, which celebrated its 482ndanniversary last month, cannot af-ford many more without a citywidesewage system, experts say, and de-

velopment must start now. If not, it

will only become more complicatedand expensive.

Bappenass Nugroho said thatwhile a comprehensive system wasindeed costly to implement, it wouldcost the citys residents even morenot to have one.

For every Rp 1 invested, thebenefit is Rp 11, he said. The failureto overcome the sanitation problem,however, will increase the cost by 36times.

First and foremost, the city mustadopt new regulations on sanitation,and map out priority areas.

There is yet to be a gooddatabase on water and sanitation,and the mapping is essential beforewe come to planning and action,PAL Jayas Setyo said. The masterplan must also be more detailed anddefinitive, stipulating whos incharge, funding and so on. Theexisting master plan only deals withtechnical matters.

Nugroho said there should alsobe alternatives to a citywide system,such as a small-scale or communalsystem for between 100 and 200households that can be connected tothe larger central sewage system.

Community-based sanitationinvolves the central government,local administration and communitysharing costs. Currently, this modelis being carried out in Bekasi, justoutside of Jakarta, and in other cities.

We have to make slum areas apriority because they are a high riskfor bad sanitation, Nugroho said.

The city administration mustalso address the problem of weaklaw enforcement and poor oversightof housing developments.

The Jakarta administrationshould have been stricter with

developers. The existing [septictank] systems in Jakarta must bemonitored and fixed, Nugroho said.A sewer system must be waterresistant, there should be aminimum proximity from waterwells and housing, and buildingdevelopers must be obliged todevelop small-scale wastewaterprocessing installations.

Isabel Blackett, from the WorldBanks Water and SanitationProgram, said a mi xed approach wasneeded for Jakarta, which means

different sewage systems being usedto supplement a main piped system.At this point, the central

government must interfere, giventhe magnitude of the problem,Blackett said. Sanitation should not

be seen as a private matter, and youcannot leave it to individuals. Strongpolitical support is needed.

$600low-end costto connect ahome to pipedsewage system

Clockwise rom let:

Children playing in the

polluted Ciliwung River.

JG Photo/Ariadi Hikmal

Residents living along the

flood-prone Sunter Canal.

Pembaruan/Luther Ulag

Men fishing at Sunter Lake

in North Jakarta.

JG Photo/Safir Makki


12/16


L

ike most urbandwellers, Jakartanswant nothing to dowith garbage. Theydont want it in theirhomes, in their handsor even in plain sight.That might explain

why the citys streets, rivers, canals,roads and underpasses are full ofsolid waste but all that trash onlycomes back to haunt city residents

because garbage is a major cause offlooding and a source ofcontaminated drinking water.

But the residents of NeighborhoodUnit 3 in Rawajati, South Jakarta, arethe exception. We need morewaste, said Ninik Nuryanto, head ofthe local womens association.

Since 2004, residents of Rawajatihave been processing domesticwaste into organic fertilizer. In the

beginning, the fertilizer was just forpersonal use, a way to help cultivatethe flowers in their front yards. Buteventually, production exceededdemand, so they started selling it.

The business is a hit. The womensassociation makes about Rp 800,000($79) a month selling bags offertilizer, plus Rp 20 million a monthhawking flower seeds, plants and

trees. Buyers come back because thefertilizer is both of good quality andcheaper than other brands. And thecommunity reaps the benefits.

The money raised from theassociations sales goes into itsadministrative fund, which it usesfor public services such as pavingroads, building sewage canals andeven setting aside land for a park. Aspeople from other neighborhoods

began visiting Rawajati, which lieson the south side of the CiliwungRiver, to enjoy the scenery, it dawnedon the locals that they had created anagritourism attraction.

Just across the river, however, inthe Cililitan Kecil kampong, its quitea different story. Boxes and bags oftrash are piled up or scattered on theriverbank, just waiting for rainwaterto push it into the Ciliwung River.Solid waste bobs in the water that

communities up and down the r iveruse for cleaning, bathing andwashing clothes.

The 3,000 families of the kampongdump their garbage on the riverbankevery day. With no trash removalservice, towers of rotting garbage arepicked through by alley cats, straydogs and rats before being blown intothe water or pushed in by the rain.

We dont have other any place todispose of our waste but here,complained Busoro, the head ofCililitan Kecils Neighborhood Unit16. Now its even worse becausesomeone bought some of the landhere, so our dump site is smaller.

With the access road to themakeshift garbage pile so narrowthat trucks are unable to remove thewaste, Busoro said onlypemulung(trash scavengers) can get throughwith their small carts to search forusable items. He added that a localcity-run waste station, which is threekilometers away, was just too far.Going to the station just to dump aplastic bag of waste is very tiring. Noone here will go there, he said.

Lack of waste disposal sites is amajor problem in Jakarta. Thepopulation of around nine millionpeople produces about 6,250 tons of

waste a day, according to the citysPublic Works Department. Jakartahas only 1,200 waste drop-offstations and two landfills outside thecity limits in Bekasi and Tangerang.

According to EndangSetyaningrum, head of the sub-directorate of Settlement HealthServices at the Ministry of PublicWorks, the typical excuse is that the

city government doesnt haveenough money to open more waste

stations. But in reality, as Endangputs it, The Jakarta administrationdoesnt have an incentive when itcomes to waste. They continue tospend budget allocations on wastewithout earning income from it.

The Jakarta administration hasthe responsibility of hauling thegarbage from the waste stations tothe landfills, but it only does so oncea week. Ideally, waste should betaken from the waste stations twicea day. But with the administrationhaving only 851 trucks, they canhardly do it, said Wahyu Pujiastuti,head of Jakartas sanitationtechnology division, adding that thefleet is also aging.

Endang said there are garbageremoval fees to be earned fromresidents of housing complexes andmiddle and upper-classneighborhoods. But instead of goinginto the city government coffers,private companies collect thegarbage of the well-heeled for a feeand dump it at the public wastestations free of charge. Some ofthem might also dump waste illegally

on abandoned land and other places,she said, because that is easier thangetting through traffic to dump theircollection at the waste stations andthey save money on gasoline.

This adds up to an environmentaldisaster. Risyana Sukarma, a waterand environment consultant for theWorld Bank, said that nearly 20percent of the citys daily waste ends

up in local rivers, canals andwaterways, reducing their ability to

handle floodwater and drainage byas much as 50 percent. The foul-smelling, polluted waters also causehealth problems for people who usethe rivers for bathing and washingclothes.

When you see all theseproblems, you feel desperate, saidRisyana, who used to work at theMinistry of Public Works. You haveto be patient because you work inIndonesia.

In Cililitan Kecil, where nobody public or private picks up thetrash, it all piles up quickly. Whenheavy rains fall, the mini-mountainsof waste wash into the CiliwungRiver. Inevitably, the water rises,inundating neighborhoods along

both sides of the river, including thehomes of the entrepreneurial trashrecyclers of Rawajati across the way.

We are often flooded even worsethan the kampong across the river,

because our land lies on a lower plainthen theirs, said Awarso, a residentof Rawajati.

Unfortunately, the recyclingethos of Rawajati is highly unusual

in Jakarta. The majority of riversideslums and neighborhoods use theriver as a toilet, shower, laundryroom and trash can.

The suffering Ciliwung hasntbeen dredged in decades and no onetakes ownership of the river. Endangsaid that river dredging is theJakarta administrationsresponsibility. However, Wahyu said

The GarbageOur Waste Mountains Can Be Better HandledOne community is cleaning up by turning waste

into fertilizer, but it is an exception to the normReport Kafil Yamin


13/16


20%o the citys dailywaste ends upin local rivers,reducing theirflow rate up to

50%

Didin Nurohim lovesDavid Beckham. Butwhen the 11-year-oldunveiled a picture othe English ootballstar it was the ramehe proudly pointedto and the sketch o

colorul flowers along its border.Me and my classmates made it,

said the student o Perguruan RakyatII Elementary School in Melayu Kecil,South Jakarta. Didin beamed withpride when he said his team wasable to make 10 picture rames out oused cardboard rescued rom theschools trash cans.

In the past our months, 90 pupilsat our elementary schools in aflood-prone area o Melayu Kecil havebeen learning to reduce solid wasteby recycling it to make handicrats.

Three NGOs Plan International,the Indonesia Disaster AwarenessFoundation (YTBI) and the

Inormation Center or IndonesiasEnvironment (PILI) are helpingstudents learn to cope with flooding,but more importantly, how to preventfloods in the first place.

Experts say about 20 percent oJakartas daily solid waste ends up inthe citys rivers and canals, blockingtheir flow and reducing their ability todeal with floodwater by up to 50

percent. This program shows studentsthe link between littering and naturaldisaster, and teaches them how torecycle waste materials and also whatto do in the event o a major flood.

They are always excited to learnthese lessons, said Sherly Leo, anactivist with YTBI.

The our schools taking part in theprogram SD Manggarai 03, SDMuhammadiyah 52, PerguruanRakyat II and SD Manggarai 04 areall located near the Ciliwung River andare no strangers to flooding. Duringthe massive floods o 2007, PerguruanRakyat II was closed or two weeks.

Im confident more schools willjoin this program, Sherly said, notingthat the schools teachers also tookpride in the act that their campuseswere cleaner since their students

joined the waste recycling project.Nuryanti, the principal o

Perguruan Rakyat II, said the trashand litter scattered around campus

had been reduced by 70 percentsince the program began because thestudents were recycling trash andusing some o it to make handicrats.

They separate paper and plasticwaste rom organic waste. Their newattitude encourages teachers to dothe same. Our students are goodexamples to their teachers, she said.Kafil Yamin

Creative Use o Trash Helps

Clogged Rivers Keep Moving

that it falls under the authority of theMinistry of Public Works. They

should get on with it, Wahyu said.Endang said private initiatives,

like Rawajatis cottage industry,would go a long way to solving thewaste problem, but neighborhoodswith high environmental awarenesslike Rawajati make up less 2 percentof Jakartas riverside dwellers. Weneed more neighborhoods likeRawajati in Jakarta.

Actually, the city, and the entirecountry for that matter, could

benefit from a massive publicawareness campaign about thesocial, environmental and economicconsequences of littering, atechnique that has had some successin Western countries.

It goes back to social lifestyle,said Sarwo Handhayani, assistantsecretary for development in theJakarta administration. You have tochange peoples mind-sets.

In addition, theres no incentivefor city dwellers to change theirhabits. Often, no one will come toremove their garbage and no oneenforces a city regulation thatprohibits dumping anything into the

citys waterways.The law is there, but withouteffort and real measures to enforce it,its all in vain, Endang said. No onegoes to court for throwing trash intothe river. No truck driver is arrestedfor dumping trash into the river.

Building landfills in each ofJakartas five districts might be onesolution, but Endang said this is

unlikely because there is no room forthem. Provincial and local

governments outside the city areunlikely to welcome a landfill intheir backyard, but in any event, theyare as guilty as Jakartans indumping their waste in rivers.

Meanwhile, in Rawajati, acommunity park hosts a hugedisplay of teak tree seeds, flowersand packages of fertilizer, a symbolof what can be done withsomething as unglamorous aswaste. Since 2006, theneighborhood has received largeorders for seeds and fertilizer fromcentral government agenciesincluding the Forestry Ministry,which means this village wantsmore trash to meet demand.

So well managed is the waste thatneighborhood houses divide it intotwo buckets: non-plastics, mainly

biodegradable waste including oldvegetables and food, and man-madeplastic waste, which is removed andresold by garbage scavengers. Theorganic waste goes into fertilizerproduction while the men from theneighborhood administration takethe plastic to a waste processing plant

next to the park. Every day, 70 people,mostly women, are involved in thisprocessing operation, which providesmore jobs as well as clean homes.

Meanwhile, walk throughRawajati and look at what you dontsee no garbage clogging drainageditches. No mounds of trash waitingto pollute the river. This is a lessonworth learning.

Two young scavengers, below,

collecting salvageable items,

mostly plastic cups and bottles,

rom a polluted river in Jakarta.

AFP Photo/Adek Berry

1) At Rawajati, ertilizer-making starts

with piles o biodegradeable waste.

2) Larger pieces go through a chipper

beore being added to the heap.

3) Additives such as lime help the waste

matter break down more efectively.

4) The finished product is allowed to

mature then is measured and bagged.

5) The compost is sold or used to enrich

Rawajatis soil. JG Photos/Ariadi Hikmal


14/16


A

lthough most ofJakartas street

vendors begintheir days soonafter sunrise,Maesaroh isforced to waitfor the water

that inundates her kiosk every nightto dry before customers can step intoher stall without soaking their feet.The wait is painful, for her nervesand her purse.

Imagine how many potentialcustomers I lose, she said.

Its been like this since Maesaroh,25, moved to the Muara Baru slumarea in North Jakarta seven yearsago. Almost every night, she said, thefloor of her house, which is attachedto her stall, is submerged under 30centimeters to 50 centimeters ofwater. [The flooding] usually starts

at midnight and ends at 11 a .m., shesaid, and it goes on for two, threeweeks every month.

In other words, she and herneighbors spend at least half of everymonth living in floodwater.

I used to sell cooked food forbreakfast as well, she said, but sincethe floods have come more regularlyin the past two years, she attractsfew early-morning customers.

Some might think Muara Baru,arguably the worst slum in Jakarta, iscursed, as the rest of the capital onlydeals with the specter of f looding on

an annual or biannual basis. But thisarea lies on the citys northerncoastline, leaving it at the mercy oftidal surges.

Whenever the Java Sea risesduring the monthly lunar tidal cycle,water rushes inland and inundatesparts of Muara Baru, which like 40percent of Jakarta lies below sealevel, according to Fakhrurozi, headof the water resources division atJakartas Public Works Department.

Jakarta is living on borrowedtime, experts say. Nine years fromnow it will be at the mercy of anupswing in the tides unless city andnational government officials f inallydo something about it. Internationalexperts predict tides will surge farinland without a new sea defensewall in Jakarta Bay.

The areas of the city mostvulnerable to tidal flooding,

Fakhrurozi said, are Muara Baru,Muara Karang, Penjaringan,Pademangan, Tanjung Priok, Pluit,Koja and Kapuk Muara. Most areindustrial areas surrounded bydensely populated villages.

Those likely to be most affectedwill be people like Maesaroh, whocan least afford it. Hoping for a betterlife, Maesaroh, who is married with a

young son, moved to Jakarta fromGarut, West Java, in 2002. But sheand thousands of other people in hercommunity are forever strugglingwith tidal f loods. People in manyother low-lying areas in the northexperience the same problem.

My sister moved here first, shesaid. I thought at that time: Whowouldnt want to seek betteropportunity in Jakarta.

Tika, 27, who also operates a littleshop in Muara Baru, thought the

same thing when she moved to thecapital in 1994. Tidal flooding hasbeen a part of her life ever since.Never in those 15 years has a monthgone by without flooding, Tika saidas she played with her two childreninside her stall.

Amid the stench from theever-present saltwater and a nearbyprawn vendor, Tika sells everythingfrom snacks to shampoo to cookedfood. Her house and kiosk are in asmall alley in the neighborhood thatshe says collects the deepestfloodwater, up to 1 meter high during

particularly strong tides.Its like a small tsunami, she

said, adding that the current is sostrong that it usually drags awayshoes, sandals and other items leftoutside peoples homes. The worstone happened earlier this year. I lostmy refrigerator and a mattress tothe f lood. A refrigerator, she said, is

vital for kiosk owners like herself,who keep stocks of food and

beverages to sell. Otherwise, her foodis at the mercy of insects that roamfreely inside the kiosk.

Government officials werewarned about the potentiallycatastrophic tidal flooding back in1994, said Hongjoo Hahm, the leadinfrastructure specialist at theWorld Bank in Jakarta, but theydidnt listen.

How bad could it get? Imagine theState Palace having a sea-front view,he said. This is nothing like riverwater this is unstoppable. This

thing is a monster of an event.And these killer tides didnt

appear from nowhere. They pose amultibillion dollar threat to the

capitals northern areas becausethese areas are continually sinkingdue to excessive extraction ofgroundwater by industry.

According to the Jakartaadministrations own estimates, thecity has sunk by as much as 1.5 metersin the past decade and notcoincidentally, by about 2 meters nearthe site of the former Bintang beerfactory in Pluit. (Take a guess why.)

Jan Jaap Brinkman, a Dutch waterexpert and adviser to the Ministry ofPublic Works, said North Jakartadesperately needs a comprehensiveearly warning system because aboutfive million people are vulnerable totidal flooding that could strikewithout warning. [Parts of the area]sank 26 centimeters betweenSeptember 2007 and August 2008,Brinkman said.

He warns that Jakarta could sinkeven lower in the coming decades,and that without better management,areas located up to five kilometersinland could be submerged andrendered uninhabitable.

And that s bad news for people

like Maesaroh and Tika. While theinhabitants of luxury apartmentsand villas in northern areas such asKelapa Gading can, and have,moved into five-star hotels totemporarily escape floods,Maesaroh, whose husband works ina nearby fish market, said they havenowhere else to go.

Ive lived on this side of townsince I first stepped foot in Jakarta,she said. I dont think I want to startover somewhere else.

The situation is even more dire forTika, whose husband is unemployed,

and whose parents live with them.My husband doesnt work so this

kiosk is our only way to earn money,she said. Otherwise, how could I put

my children through school?Originally from Semarang,

Central Java, Tika believes her futurestill lies in Jakarta, despite thefrequent inundation by seawater.

Almost without thinking, she said,she packs up all her wares from thekiosk when the tides come in andputs them in a safe, dry place insideher house. Its something we justhave to deal with, she said.

Unfortunately, her endlesspatience and stoicism wont beenough to stop the tides fromswamping North Jakarta. Brinkmansaid the central and citygovernments have developed astrategic plan that could be used todefend the city from the sea.

One of the ideas is to create asmall reservoir in the Jakarta Bayand build an off-shore dike, he said.

He said the reservoir would beused to store water to prevent it fromflooding the city. The water in thereservoir, he said, would then bepumped back into the sea usingpumps erected on the dike.

The Public Works Ministry, the

Jakarta administration and theNational Development PlanningAgency are assessing the plan, andBrinkman said they will meet inSeptember to discuss how to makeit happen.

Others, however, have a differentperspective on the potential tidalcalamity threatening the city. AndojoWurjanto, a lecturer at BandungInstitute of Technologys OceanEngineering Department, notes thatJakarta has always had tides, even

before it had people.Why are they flooding Jakarta

now? Thats the question, he said.Andojo claims the answer is that

The TidesEforts Never End to Repel an Invading SeaIts a race against time to build deenses

against the growing threat o tidal floodsReport Putri Prameshwari

150cmdepth the cityhas sunk insome parts overthe last decade

A temporary levee shows how the sea level has deeated parts o Marunda, North Jakarta, let. Workers brave the waters to plant mangroves at Kapuk Mangrove Natural

Tourism and Conservation Park in North Jakarta. Rehabilitating damaged mangrove orests could help protect against tidal floods. JG Photos/Ariadi Hikmal, Safir Makki


15/16


Tides can cause flooding even in themiddle o a long dry spell. The reasonis simple: tidal floods arent caused byweather, but by the gravitational pullo the moon and the sun.

The earths rotation is also a actor.As the planet spins it creates acentriugal orce that causes theoceans to shit like water inside a

spinning glass.Its basically the interaction

among the oceans, sun and themoon, said Sugarin, head o the dataand inormation division at theMeteorology and GeophysicsAgencys maritime department.

Although they dont get as muchpublicity as floods caused by rainsthat lead to overflowing rivers, tidalfloods are potentially ar moredangerous or Jakarta because thecity continues to sink by 5centimeters to 10 centimeters a year,and as much as 25 centimeters insome areas.

The tidal cycle afecting Jakartalasts about 18 years, swingingbetween periods o higher andlower tides every nine years or so.The latest downswing began lastyear, so Jakarta residents can expectto see the tides begin their next

upswing in 2018. Meanwhile, Jakartawill have been steadily sinking.

In other words, the city has nineyears to avoid devastating flooding,especially in northern Jakarta, saidHongjoo Hahm, lead inrastructurespecialist at the World Bank inJakarta. Imagine the sea rising andthe ground sinking, he said.

There are separate sea walls alongthe shores o Muara Baru and Pluit,but they can no longer keep water outbecause o continuing landsubsidence across the city, said JanJaap Brinkman, a hydrology expertwho works closely with the Ministry oPublic Works.

The temporary walls arent strong

enough, he said, adding that sinkingland poses a ar greater threat thanthe rising tides.

While simple tidal flooding cancreate devastation on its own, itsefects can be multiplied by weathersuch as a cyclone or even strongwinds, Sugarin said.

Strong winds even ar ofshore

can cause sea waves to grow muchbigger. For example, a cyclone araway in the South China Sea canproduce higher waves in Jakarta.Add such conditions to regular tidalflooding, and the results could becatastrophic, especially orJakartans living along thewaterront.

Imagine theres water on a plate,and we blow rom one end, Sugarinsaid. Water on the other end willrumble depending on how strong weblow on it.

However, Sugarin declined tospeculate on whether Jakarta couldbe doomed by tidal flooding.

There are many actors thattrigger a tidal flood, he said,including inadequate sea walls,land subsidence and the qualityo city drainage.Putri Prameshwari

How Earth, Sun and Moon Conspire Against the Sinking City

A man braves the floodwaters to collect boards rom his wrecked shed in North Jakarta. Slum residents inevitably sufer the most rom tidal floods because they have nowhere else to go. JG Photo/Safir Makki

Hundreds o residents crammed into trucks are erried through the flooded

streets o Muara Baru. The area sufers regular floods as a result o high tides.

rising sea levels caused by globalwarming are partially to blame forthe tidal floods. Add to that thedescending ground levels, andwater could easily inundate thecity, he said.

The World Banks Hahmemphatically refuses this suggestion.Its absolutely and categoricallyfalse, he said. Global warming hasnot even made sea levels increaseanywhere in the world yet, so how

can it have some localized effect? Ifthat were the case, Singapore andBatam would be under water by now.

For their part, the people ofMuara Baru couldnt care less aboutthe scientific explanations of thetidal floods. Edi Junaedi, who is inhis 40s, sells meatball soup from acart in the neighborhood. His biggestfear is losing his car to floodwaters,as he did in 2007. It was the worstone to ever come, Edi said, standing

behind his cart in front of a kiosk.Edis wife and daughter live in East

Java, but he said he chose to stay inMuara Baru because his friends did,too. After nine years in the city, Edisaid he still has a hard time pushinghis cart through the f looded streets.

Andojo said it would beimpossible to relocate people living

Continued overlea


16/16


From previous page

in Muara Baru, so the governmentmust maintain dozens of specialpumps across North Jakarta to keepeven more water from flooding thestreets. People in Muara Baru are

very dependent on the governmentbecause they cannot afford to pay formaintenance [of the pumps], he said.

Andojo said the city has an

obligation to make data on tidalflooding available to residents.However, Edi, Tika, and Maesaroh

have never used a computer and areincapable of looking up tideforecasts on the Internet. All wedo is just look to the sea, Tika said,pointing to the water visible fromher house. When the water level ishigh and the wind is strong, we haveto start preparing for the worst.

Fakhrurozi said a dam or sea wallmust be constructed along the coastof North Jakarta to prevent the sea

from inundating the city. Theproblem is, we dont have pumpsinstalled in every river, he said.

Fakhrurozi said the Jakartaadministration allocates Rp 15 billion($1.5 million) a year from theprovincial budget to maintain pumpsand floodgates across the city. Wemanage the funds for 316 pumps and34 floodgates, he said, adding thereis also an emergency fund of Rp 3

billion to repair broken equipment.Fakhrurozi said the government

built one sea wall along Jakartas

northern coastline, and that it wasmade taller in 2007. But even thatdidnt work. In 1998, we expanded

the sea wall by one meter but due tothe sinking ground, the sea levelreached 1.2 meters in 2007, heexplained. Its like we are playingcatch-up with nature.

Fakhrurozi said the seawall isnow three meters high. According toJakartas Public Works Department,the sea level off Jakarta Bay rose byfour centimeters from 1998 to 2007.

Andojo said that aside from

maintaining pumps and floodgates,the government must also thinkabout alternative solutions to the

flooding, such as dredging riverbedsacross Jakarta. There needs to be anintegrated solution to the citysflooding problem, he said.

The flooding in Muara Baruworsens during the rainy season,when water can reach up to morethan one meter.

Maesaroh said she can only hopethat the government will repair andmaintain the pumps. Maybe they

should try living here for a few daysduring the f loods, she said. Thenthey will finally care about us.

Three boys picking their way along the beach near a newly built sea wall in Muara Baru designed to hold back the tidal surges that plague the area. In Ancol, N orth Jakarta, tide levels inundated a cemetery earlier

this year. Bajajs surfing the waves o tidal surges are a common sight in Muara Baru. Tidal flooding in northern parts o the city has become more common. JG Photos/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya, Safir Makki, Ariadi Hikmal

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