Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – The poor quality of the city's water is making children more vulnerable to diseases and deficiencies, particularly those living in slum neighborhoods, a health official said Tuesday.
I Nyoman Kandun, the director general of communicable disease prevention at the Health Ministry, said contact with contaminated water could cause diarrhea, polio, hepatitis or cholera, whereas bad housing and poor environmental conditions were linked with dengue and bird flu.
"(The diseases) have been very common lately. Most of the diseases we currently handle are related to environmental conditions, such as the poor quality of drinking water and the sanitation system," Kandun told a seminar on Raw water scarcity: Challenges to supply drinking water in urban areas, which was organized by the Indonesian Communication Forum on Drinking Water Quality Management (Forkammi).
"About 19 percent of the child deaths in the country are caused by waterborne diarrheal diseases," he added.
He said improving public access to clean water by 10 percent would reduce the annual number of child deaths by 4 percent, whereas raising slum dwellers' incomes by 10 percent would lower the number by only 3 percent.
In addition, he said, encouraging good habits, such as careful hand-washing and avoiding sharing food, cups and utensils, could reduce children's exposure to illness by 65 percent.
Jakarta, which is home to more than 10 million people, has long been facing problems because its piped water – though clean-looking – is not drinkable and not all residents have access to piped water in their homes.
The Jakarta Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD) estimates the city's water needs at 547.5 million cubic meters per year. Jakarta's two tap water operators, however, produce only 295 million cubic meters of water or enough to meet 54 percent of the clean water demand.
Residents who lack access to piped water are forced to rely on groundwater, pumping about 251.8 million cubic meters a year in total. This is far higher than the groundwater recharge rate, which is estimated at 186.2 million cubic meters a year.
Most of Jakarta's rainwater runs directly into rivers. As a result, the city is hit by floods in the rainy season and water shortages in the dry.
In low-lying North Jakarta, groundwater depletion has caused serious land subsidence, making the area more vulnerable to flooding and allowing sea water from the Java Sea to seep into the coastal aquifers.
Agency chairman Budirama Natakusamah told the seminar – which was held in conjunction with World Water Day on March 22 – that most of the groundwater in the city was contaminated with unhealthy bacteria.
Data from the agency shows that about 80 percent of the groundwater in wells with depths of 10-20 meters is contaminated with pathogenic disease-causing bacteria, such as E-coli. This is due to the absence of a municipal sewage system in the city.
A study on urban drainage and wastewater disposal in Jakarta showed that middle- to high-income households produce 38 percent and 116 percent more wastewater than low-income households respectively. Jakarta only just one water treatment plant in Setiabudi, South Jakarta, which can only process up to 3 percent of the city's wastewater.
Budirama said his office was also facing problems in monitoring the quality of river water, which is the only source of raw water for Jakarta's tap water operators.
Data from the administration shows that 78 percent of the city's rivers were deemed polluted in 2006, up from 77 percent in 2005.