Green Tax Urged Over Jakarta Water Crisis Fear

Ulma Haryanto Jakarta Globe 23 Feb 11;

A leading environmental group has warned of an acute water shortage hitting Jakarta unless the administration introduces a tax to help fund the restoration of upstream catchment areas.

Tri Agung Rooswiadji, national coordinator for freshwater programs at WWF-Indonesia, said on Monday that it supported the introduction of an “environmental service fee” and the integration of watershed management.

“The idea is to raise people’s awareness that all of us have been consuming natural resources,” he said. “How can we give back? This concept has not been practiced yet in the capital.”

He said an environmental service fee had already been imposed in places such as Lombok to help fund campaigns to plant trees further upstream.

“The customers of the regional water operator there pay Rp 1,000 [$0.11] per month for the reforestation of Mount Rinjani [where their water is sourced],” Tri explained.

“The money then goes to the people living in the upstream areas to plant trees, including fruit trees whose produce they can sell,” he added.

This way, the upstream areas are kept pristine to ensure a sustainable supply of water to downstream areas, while the upstream residents benefit from sales of the fruit.

Tri said that rolling out a similar program for the nation’s capital would be more complex but was not inconceivable.

“The key is coordination and synergy between different administrations because the rivers in Jakarta flow in from Bogor and other parts of West Java,” he said.

The city requires at least 1 billion cubic meters of water a year for domestic and industrial use, 82 percent of which is supplied from the Jatiluhur dam in Purwakarta, West Java, while the rest comes from the Cisadane and Krukut rivers in Tangerang.

However, severe silting of the dam and the Citarum River, that also channels its water to Jakarta, has been known to cut the water supply to much of the capital by 40 percent. “There’s natural silting and there’s also man-made silting, caused by domestic and industrial waste being disposed into waterways,” Tri said.

He added that along with the environmental service fee, integrated watershed management was also key in managing water resources and would result in better spatial planning by freeing up riverbanks from illegal settlements. “Water resources for Jakarta are limited while the city’s population is growing,” he said.

“Extracting groundwater isn’t an option because it should only be used as an [emergency] alternative, so everybody has to start thinking of rehabilitation of water resources soon.”

Mauritz Napitupulu, president director of city-owned water operator PAM Jaya, said the water problem in the Greater Jakarta area was far too complex to resolve through an environmental service fee.

“It’s a good idea, but the exploitation of upstream areas continues to increase,” he said.

This means Jakarta has to create supporting infrastructure, such as the East Flood Canal, and dredge its rivers.

“Besides, any kind of contribution from PAM customers would never be enough to conserve green space in upstream and watershed areas,” Mauritz said. He added that medium- and high-use water subscribers in Jakarta were already paying extra to subsidize those in low-income areas.

PAM Jaya expects to start drawing water from the 13 rivers crisscrossing the city once a massive dredging project is complete.

“We aim to increase the current capacity by another 2,000 liters per second by channeling water from the East and West Flood Canals, the Pesanggrahan River and the Cengkareng catchment area,” said Sri Widiyanto, PAM’s technical director.

The canals are designed to channel excess rainwater and runoff out to sea.