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Jakarta. Fresh water channeled to Jakarta from the Jatiluhur Dam in West Java is being tainted by dirty river water, officials said on Tuesday.

The water reaches Jakarta through the West Trunk Canal before going to pumping stations run by the city’s water operators.

However, water quality is compromised when it is in the canal, where it mixes with water from the heavily polluted Bekasi River, which forms part of the canal’s length.

Henry Marolop Limbong, senior production manager for private water operator PT Aetra Air Jakarta, said the quality of the water reaching his company’s pumping stations had failed to meet the standards set out in a 1985 gubernatorial decree on water services.

“Around three-quarters of the problems we have with respect to water production are attributable directly to the low quality of the fresh water,” he said.

Other factors included electricity problems, fluctuating flow rates and sedimentation.

Limbong said the water quality problems peaked on Feb. 13 this year when the turbidity at Aetra’s Buaran water treatment plant exceeded by a factor of 16 the specified turbidity listed in the decree.

The color was also off by a factor of 75, while the manganese content was 8,994 milligrams per liter — 17,900 times higher than the specified 0.5 mg/l.

Similarly, the iron content on that date was 38.79 mg/l, up from 2mg/l, while the organic content was 10 times higher than the prescribed 30mg/l.

“The higher the water turbidity, the more chemicals we need to treat it, and the higher our production costs,” Limbong said.

Sutisna Pikra Saleh, observation and conservation head at PT Perusahaan Umum Jasa Tirta II, which supplies the fresh water from Jatiluhur, said his company should not be blamed for the contamination. He passed the blame to the regional administrations and environmental agencies responsible for managing the Bekasi River.

He said the pollution in the Bekasi River stemmed from the abundance of factories that poured much of their industrial waste into the river. Domestic household waste was also to blame.

“The onus is on the Jakarta authorities to improve their water treatment facilities and raise public awareness about keeping rivers clean,” Sutisna said.

City water operator PAM Jaya, which subcontracts its operations to Aetra and PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja), agreed the quality of the water provided by Jasa Tirta was far from satisfactory.

PAM Jaya production manager Alamsyah Pandjaitan said plans were under way to build dividers within the Bekasi River section of the West Trunk Canal to separate the water from Jatiluhur from the polluted water.

He said the project, expected to start next month, would be carried out by the Public Works Ministry and was scheduled for completion in September 2012.

Once completed, it is also expected to help boost the flow rate heading into the capital by 4,000 cubic meters a second.

Firdaus Ali, an environmental expert from the University of Indonesia, said the problem of poor water quality needed to be resolved as soon as possible.

“Water is one of the most basic needs,” he said. “It’s ironic that the government subsidizes services such as electricity and fuel  but not water. The cross-subsidy currently employed in the water sector just fobs off domestic consumers’ costs onto corporate consumers.”

Firdaus said ensuring the quality of the fresh water was Jasa Tirta’s responsibility but conceded the company did not have the authority or funding to carry this through.

He called for Jakarta’s 13 rivers to be restored to provide drinking water and reduce the city’s total dependence on water from elsewhere.

Jatiluhur provides 98 percent of the city’s water, while the rest comes from the Krukut River in Tangerang.