Asia Times: Industry chokes Indonesian river habitat



	May 15, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Industry chokes Indonesian river habitat
By Kafil Yamin

SAGULING, Indonesia - ''We are as poor as we werebefore. But in the past, we lived in more comfort,'' rues Arifin,as he looks out at the Citarum river near his village of Cimahiliroutside the capital Jakarta.

His remarks seem like a contradiction at first, but are not: By''comfort'' he means that he and his neighbors used to be able tofish in the river, wash in it and use it for recreation.

The older residents of Cimahilir, by the river west of Bandungcity, light up each time they talk about the community's betterdays, especially the river's bounty and natural beauty.

Reminisces Arifin: ''Rice grew well. The harvest was always good,so we always had enough rice for three months or so. We had fishin our daily meals. Our wives did their washing in the river whileour children swam."

''We enjoyed them all without requiring money,'' he recalls inan interview.

But those days are just memories now. Today, harvest yieldshave dropped sharply and rice shortages are frequent, partly traceable to the heavily polluted river water that flows into the paddy fields.

Women can no longer do their washing and children cannot swimin the Citarum river, now dark and foul-smelling.

Hundreds of textile factories line the riverbanks of this once-exotic site, dumping often untreated waste and chemicals into theriver.

''In the past, we breathed deeply when we were there. Now we haveto close our nose and hold our breath each time we pass throughit,'' says Muharram, a 34-year-old Cimahilir resident.

The environment began changing during the 1980s, when rapidindustrialization spread to the area. As inmany other parts of Indonesia and other Asian countries, agriculturalland has been converted to industrial uses.

In the case of Cimahilir, this land conversion brought with itthe use of the river as a garbage bin for the factories.

The results have been disastrous. Because the Citarum riverempties into the Saguling lake, site of the largest powergenerator in West Java province, its filthy water carries tonnesof garbage into the lake as well.

Constructed in 1980 by French company, the 700megawatt power plant occupies an area of some 1,500 squarekilometers that was converted from some 2,000 villages.

The power plant complex looks like a gigantic waste harbor,against heaps of rubbish floating on the lake. The garbage keepscoming in from different places, carried by at least six rivers.

Not having other resources to rely on, villagers make use ofthe polluted river anyway. They try to breed fish in the lake,although fish kills are not uncommon.

Locals say the pollution is worsened by the fact that not justthe Citarum flows into Lake Saguling - it is the finaldestination of two other major rivers in the province, Cisangkuyand Cikapundung, both equally polluted.

A recent study by the Institute of Ecology of the Bandung-basedPadjadjaran University found sharp increases of elements ofnitrogen, ortophosphat (PO4) and bio-chemical oxygen demand (BOD)in the three rivers. The three are derived from both household andindustrial waste.

The rise in these elements are aggravated by the reduction ofoxygen in the river's water.

Hilmi Salim, a member of the research team, points toanother readily evident symptom of poor-quality water in the fastgrowth of eceng gondok (''wild water plants'' or plankton) and sapu-sapu (mudslipper fish).

He reports that wild water plants cover up to 10 square kilometers of the lakesurface.

Salim says the deteriorating quality of the water bodes ill forthe future, even for the power plant itself and, in turn, thefactories it feeds power to.

''The water volume will decrease a lot and when it reaches acertain level, the power generator cannot function properly. Thewhole province will return to darkness,'' he says.

The research team concluded that the pollution comes fromsome 400 factories along the three rivers, many of which dumpwaste into the water.

The economic crisis has exacerbated the situation, making thefactories unable to continue or put in new investment in cleanertechnology. ''Due to the crises, factories have abandoned pre-discharge waste treatment they did in the past,'' Salim adds.

At least 15 textile factories dump their waste directly intoCitarum river, their discharge pipes visible to any visitor. Theyspew foul-smelling and dark-colored water into the river.

Now, Salim noted, what used to be free resources for living -fish and clean water - have disappeared.

The hundreds of people living along the three rivers havebeen deprived of the fish they have long relied on for food.

Every morning and afternoon, residents queue up by certainspots to get clean water. The water is ''provided'' by the samefactories that pollute the area, through small pipes outside theirwalls.

''Now we completely rely on the factories' generosity inwater,'' complains Ahmad Sumardi, a resident of Dayeuh Kolotvillage, also by the Citarum river.

The Indonesian Textile Association admits that the majority of itsmembers discharge waste in a manner harmful to surroundings, butputs the blame on ''insufficient'' waste processingtechnology provided by local governments.

Still, Prasetyo Sunaryo, of the environment division of theassociation's body of technological assessment and innovation,agrees that it is time businessmen looked not just at financialprofit but the larger good of the affected communities that hosttheir operations.

''If the businessmen are sensible enough and environmentallyaware, they would be willing to reduce their profit by a littleportion for the sake of environmental sustainability,'' heexplains.

But as is commonly the case, high costs are invoked when itcomes to waste treatment. Argues Sunaryo: ''It costs 20 percent ofthe total production cost."

(Inter Press Service)

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