Fadli, Batam – Holding his five-year-old son, Arman stared at a dark-colored pool of water near his house in Batam, Riau Islands province. The pool is a "souvenir" from sand mining in the area.

The mining in Nongsa district not only left dark pools some five meters deep, creating breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, but also increased the risk of flooding in the area.

"The residents around the sand mines have complained to the subdistrict office and police, but there's been no response," Arman, 42, told The Jakarta Post.

He raised fears the pools also threatened the safety of children. In 2004, three children aged between three and seven reportedly drowned while playing in the pools.

"The people who dredge the sand have no intention of covering the pools once they are done mining. We have to watch our children extra carefully because they love to play around (the pools)," said the resident of kampong Teluk Mata Ikan, near Nongsa Beach.

An increase in the number of malaria cases in the area also has been blamed on the pools, with the Nongsa community health center recording about 90 cases of malaria a month.

According to residents, there are dozens of locations in the district where sand mining is carried out by individuals or companies. Residents believe the sand is shipped to Singapore.

Muhammad Yasin, a Nongsa resident, said the sand mining started in 1997 to supply the construction industry in Singapore. "They export (the sand) to Singapore. Because sand mining in the ocean has been stopped, sand on dry land has become the next target. The mining has been really bad for us," Muhammad charged.

He said hundreds of families in Nongsa district had written to different government departments to complain about the mining, but they received no response and the mining has continued.

"During heavy rain, floods become a threat. During the last rains, floodwater entered my house, 10 centimeters high. I've been living here for decades and that's the first time my house has been flooded," he said.

Observations by the Post at one of the mining locations indicated the work was being carried out without a clear plan, causing many trees to be lost and posing a landslide threat to residential areas near the mining site.

There are no records kept on the amount of sand being removed, nor is there a clear policy from the Batam city administration as to whether the work is legal or not.

Aloysius, a worker at one of the sand quarries, said he did not know anything about permits or the company that owned the sand mining area. Aloysius said he worked with about 10 other people, and they were paid Rp 50,000 (US$5) for each truck they filled with sand.

They load about six trucks a day, with each truck having a capacity of five to seven tons. None of the workers, however, were able or willing to give the name of the company they worked for.

Batam Environmental Impact Agency head Mawardi Badar said his office had requested a stop to all sand mining in Batam, especially in Nongsa district. He admitted the mining had been going on for some time.

"We have tried and failed to stop illegal sand mining. We'll look into the matter to see if this work is having a big environmental impact," he said.