|
|
|
  |
| AsiaViews, Edition: 46/VI/February2010 |
|
| Cleaning Up Citarum River |
The Citarum River was once a majestic river. More than 220km long, it winds down from the Wayang Mountain, south of Bandung, Indonesia, and flows out to sea in Pantai Bahagia, Bekasi. Its name is derived from the words ‘ci’ meaning water and ‘tarum’, a type of plant which produced indigo dye which used to thrive there. It was also once the boundary separating the 5th century kingdoms of Galuh and Sunda.
Now, the Citarum River is a river of sorrow.
In the mid-70s, Citarum River still flowed freely, its waters abundant and clear. People were able to play and swim in the river, raft down the rapids, and even drink from it. Today it is no longer the case. In the last decade especially, the water level has declined and can no longer meet the needs of the people living along its banks. The water quality has drastically dropped, making it undrinkable and unfit for human consumption. Worse, it is now considered a hazard, famous for being the cause of floods due to man-made environmental damage upstream and along the riverbanks. Not only that, the International Herald Tribune once dubbed it the “world’s dirtiest river”, a place where people throw their rubbish and defecate. A sad fate for a river that centuries ago was central to the oldest Hindu kingdom in West Java, Tarumanagara.
The Indonesian government knows the value of Citarum River. Its three dams produce 1,400 megawatts of hydropower and its waters irrigate 420,000 hectares of agricultural land. It sustains the lives of 25 million people, 10 million of whom live in Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta. It also supplies roughly 80% of the water needs of Jakarta’s residents. Given its strategic importance, it has undertaken an ambitious plan to save the river under design known as the “Citarum Roadmap”. The Roadmap has been designed to revitalize the river within the next 15-20 years at an estimated cost of Rp.35 trillion or approximately US$3.7 billion. As many as 80 different programs have been identified, targeting the many complex problems swirling around the river, ranging from rehabilitation of the upstream areas to community-based water management and sanitation.
According to M. Donny Azdan, Director of Water Resources and Irrigation of the National Development Planning Agency which is coordinating the efforts to clean up the river, the Citarum River presents a myriad of problems. Depletion of protected forest areas, cutting down of trees, land conversion, all have led to erosion upstream and subsequent flooding. Further down the river, waste from cattle produces 190 tons of sewage daily which can potentially pollute the water. Many of the factories in the area also blatantly pollute the river, causing fish to die and people to suffer from skin diseases. Heavily populated areas along the banks contribute to the amount of garbage in the river where these same people also wash their clothes, bathe and do their ‘morning business’. To solve these issues, “everything has to be integrated and coordinated.”
Whatever the government plans to do, however, cannot succeed without the support of the community and, according to Rifai Natanegara, environmental activist and Head of the Steering Committee of the Citarum Wanadri Expedition, it is a classic case of ‘environmental disaster vs feeding hungry stomachs.’ He notes that, “we all realize that to protect the environment, protect forests, are important but what can we say when people’s stomachs are empty?” In the sub-district of Kertasari, 73 kilometers from Wayang Mountain, for example, as many as 66,000 people live on 700 hectares on land. “If every head of the family is a farmer, how much land can they farm to just survive?” he asks.
To help improve their quality of life, the government had at one time introduced a program to covert the dung from approximately 8,000 cows owned by the community into biogas to replace the 40 trucks of fertilizer, insecticides, and fungicides brought into the area daily. The community had always considered the cow dung as waste, not realizing its value. The government provided the infrastructure for the production of biogas but did not train any of the community members as technicians. What’s now left of the program are a few biogas reactors with some never once being used.
In 1982, the government also began to install water pipes, making water more accessible. But this has led to unintended consequences. Water pipes have cut the people off from the source of the water, creating the mindset that water is available at the turn of the tap, forgetting that it is a gift from nature which needs to be conserved.
WANADRI, an association of jungle explorers and mountain climbers, has taken the initiative to bring greater attention to the plight of the Citarum River. In 1975 they organized the first Citarum Expedition. They are now repeating the expedition albeit under very different circumstances due to the deterioration of the river. The association is documenting all the problem spots along the river using visual data and data from a Geographic Information System (GIS). The socio-economic aspects of communities living in the river basin area are also being researched for input to the government.
Other civil society organizations and grassroots associations are also doing community-based activities to create the awareness of the importance of keeping the river clean and the importance of protecting the environment. Communities are becoming increasingly more aware that if there are no drastic and planned changes made, they will face even more serious disasters in the future.
The plight of the Citarum River is just a snapshot of the impact on environmental degradation and population growth on the supply of water in Indonesia. Needless to say, water resource management requires a well-coordinated, multi-pronged approach which includes the participation of communities and stakeholders.
M. Donny Adzan is hopeful. The River Han in South Korea, the Thames in London, were once also heavily polluted but now they are national icons. Perhaps one day the Citarum River will be the same. |
|
| By Natalia Soebagjo |
|
| Asiaviews, Vol.III No.10 February - March 2010 |
|
|
Your Letters | 
About Us | 
Contact Us 
