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Water Worries: What’s Wrong With Jakarta's Water and What Can Be Done?
July 27, 2010

A boy bathing his younger sibling in a slum in Penjaringan, North Jakarta. (Photo: Safir Makki, JG) A boy bathing his younger sibling in a slum in Penjaringan, North Jakarta. (Photo: Safir Makki, JG)
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peterR
2:21pm Nov 23, 2010

It is appalling and is indicative of a government and administration that has lost all purpose, with the one exception of promoting personal wealth within the governing Elite.

Jakarta is living testimony to the destruction and devastation that corruption causes.

spammer
12:38pm Nov 23, 2010

I heard recently from a UN scientist that the water in Jakarta has 5 times more faecal matter than the water one would find in Ethiopia.. What's the deal with that?

Valkyrie
5:20pm Jul 27, 2009

If I were the President, I would start a special department to look into the criticisms coming from various areas.

Pak SBY, please try to view the people's opinion. We want Indonesia to be a great nation. We are not radicals, but only ordinary citizens who respect the law and love this wonderful nation.

I am sure you can spare 30 minutes a day Pak President to browse the net and find sites where people are stating their opinions. Please try to look into it yourself and get first hand feelings of what people are trying to tell you. I don't know for sure, but maybe whatever news you get to read has been filtered to please your eyes.

Once again Pak SBY, we implore upon your outreach to the people. Most of us, if not all, will tell you the truth in it's purest form. We are not afraid to tell you because it contains the truth.

I am one who had an experience worth mentioning now.

My son won a competition organized by a local radio station. He was required to write a letter to the President about things that mattered most to him, and if he won, can deliver it personally to the President. Yes, the radio station awardered him a trophy and conducted on air interviews with me and my wife.

Their promises of a meeting with the President to deliver personally his letter NEVER took place. It has been more than three years or so. I don't believe that the President during this last three years had no time to receive my son. I'll accept the benefit of this doubt - the President was not aware of this. Nevertheless it left a deep imprint on my son's mind about why people have the audacity to use the President's name in vain.

My wife and I were not aware of what our son did. His school teachers gave him the information and he took it upon himself to write the letter. We only got the information when the radio station called us. We are proud of our son because he has not kept any animosity till this date. Of course he was disappointed. My wife and I will still persevere in teaching him to be a good and loyal Indonesian.

pyudiq5
3:07pm Jul 27, 2009

this is one of problems faced jakartans currently, the problems are complex and are need special attention not only governm but it also need our responsibilities as community members as well as companies through their CSR, but if there are no blue prints or integrated water planning solver, it will be useless.

we think to change their habit, think about water sources, the infrastructures supported, the network, etc..is it possible

OzAbroad
1:06pm Jul 27, 2009

Better still just get the government to spend some money on the infrastructure needed... Oops maybe not

Is there a more crucial natural resource than water? Forgotten, abused or taken for granted, water dwarfs everything else when it comes to sustaining life.

But Jakarta lives with a perpetual water crisis that recalls an African proverb: “Filthy water cannot be washed.” For millions of Jakarta residents this is painfully true. There is not enough clean water for daily living, and dirty water, in the form of contamination and floods, brings disease and disaster.

Jakarta loses hundreds of millions of dollars to floods that seem inevitable. Partially caused by man-made garbage that blocks our canals and waterways, they are a painful reminder of a flawed infrastructure. Floodwater, and the almost total lack of a citywide sewage system, causes health problems, leads to lost productivity and destroys property.

Filthy floodwater pollutes the water system, one of many reasons why we can’t drink from the tap, and contaminates groundwater wells that provide up to 30 percent of the city’s water. Those wells, unfortunately, contribute to the gradual sinking of Jakarta, which in turn means that tidal flooding is growing steadily worse.

All of these problems are connected, and there is no simple way to “wash” the crisis clean. Nothing short of firm central and local government leadership, hard work, public participation and lots of money will save us and our city from disaster.

The time to act is now.

Statistics:

- Some parts of Jakarta sink 25cm every year.

- There is 60% less spending on infrastructure as a proportion of GDP than in Suharto era.

- 35 million people are expected to be living and using water in Greater Jakarta by 2020.

- 400,000 liters of waste is dumped in the capital’s rivers or canals every day.

- 140 elephants: the weight of raw sewage that goes into Jakarta’s ground or waterways daily.

- 20% of Jakartans have no access to a toilet.

- Indonesia’s annual economic and health cost due to poor sanitation is $5.8 billion.
   

Read the Jakarta Globe's full investigation of Jakarta's water woes in the special section of the Web site.