Jakarta – Jakarta's pipe water users may not be getting any water at all next year if the administration does not bring the supply to a potable level.
The government regulation on the water supply system states that by Jan. 1, water sold to consumers must conform to the potable water standard.
However, the city has yet to make any significant effort to improve the system, said Manfred Oepen, a senior consultant for the Indonesian Communication Forum on Drinking Water Quality Management (Forkami) and the Water and Sanitation Network.
"They are allowing poor quality water to be distributed," he told The Jakarta Post. "The government has issued a law and the city administration is neglecting it," he said.
Manfred said the city administration, as operators of water utilities in Jakarta, were ignoring an important public health issue.
Water-related illnesses rank fourth (skin infections) and eighth (diarrhea and cholera) among illnesses most commonly reported to health centers in Jakarta, according to data provided by the Water and Sanitation Network.
"Any government in the world would put their citizen's health at the top of its priorities," Manfred said. Firdaus Ali from the regulatory body of Jakarta's water supply said both the city administration and the central government were at fault.
"The government issued the regulation without realizing how difficult it is to bring Jakarta's pipe network to potable water levels," he said. "There is now a regulation on water quality, yet the city administration is clearly not delivering potable water to the people," he added.
Potable water must not contain any E-coli bacteria, while 'clean water' may contain up to 0.3 mg/L of the bacteria, which puts consumers at risk of cholera, diarrhea and other gastronomic diseases.
Water utility companies in Bogor and Tangerang have already made efforts to provide potable water to residents. Bogor City Hall has installed a potable water fountain, while Arcadia housing complex in Batu Ceper, Tangerang, has potable water on tap.
Jakarta employs PT Thames PAM Jaya (TPJ) and PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja) as its sole piped water distributors, which supply nearly half of Jakarta's populace.
Thames Pam Jaya Public Relations Manager Devy Yheanne told the Post the company had started a pilot project to supply potable water in East Jakarta within a regulated zone.
She said all water distributed by TPJ was potable water, but pollutants were entering water as it passed through the pipe network, reducing its quality by the time it reached consumers.
Devy blamed the pollutants on old and leaky pipes, and rampant water theft, adding that keeping an eye on the network was a daunting task involving the whole society.
"Not just the distributor is to blame, but also the government and the people," she said, adding that much investment would be needed to upgrade the network.
According to data provided by the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, only half the water produced by the company reached customers.
Meanwhile, Manfred said the city administration needed to revitalize the dialogue between Jakarta's water utility companies and the Ministry of Health, to organize water quality surveys.
The Water and Sanitation Network is currently in the process of publishing a fully independent water quality survey to be completed by mid January next year. (anw)