Erwida Maulia and ID Nugroho, Jakarta/Sidoarjo – A group on Thursday declared a movement to stop the mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, while questioning the government's political will to end the disaster.
The group of experts and public figures is led by Nahdlatul Ulama senior leader Solahuddin Wahid, the younger brother of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, and includes former Muhammadiyah chairman Ahmad Syafii Maarif and mud volcano experts from several state universities.
Solahuddin accused the government and the House of Representatives of lacking seriousness to stop the mudflow that began in May 2006. "There's been something of an effort not to let the public know the mudflow is stoppable," he said at a ceremony to announce the group's intentions at the House building in Jakarta.
Rudi Rubiandini, a drilling expert of the Bandung Institute of Technology, refuted claims the mudflow was a natural phenomenon, which has been widely asserted since the beginning of the disaster.
He and former Pertamina deputy director Mustiko Saleh, both part of the group, also rejected the theory the mudflow was triggered by the 2006 earthquake that rattled Yogyakarta a few days before the mudflow began.
The group said it would use relief well technology to stop the mudflow, and conduct fund-raising activities to finance the movement. Rudi said that by drilling a relief well to get to the source of the mudflow, which lies at a depth of 2,000 to 3,000 meters, they would be able to plug the source.
He said the source could be destroyed by injecting mud with higher specific gravity and channeling the hot salty water, which produces mud after mixing with clay, to the earth's surface via the relief well.
Another possible solution is to explode layers around the source to close the crack from which the water flows, he added. "Such a method requires six months of preparations, but will effectively destroy the mudflow source within three hours," said Rudi, who is also the former head of the independent team investigating the mudflow. He said the effort would cost between US$50 million and $70 million.
"Using concrete balls or constructing cover dams won't work because they don't kill the mudflow at its source, but only at its surface. "Those methods would only result in the flowing of mud through other places," Rudi said.
The relief well technology had been used to stop the Sidoarjo mudflow once previously, according to retired operation head for drilling activities at state-owned oil company PT Pertamina, Kersam Sumanta. But it failed to work, as mining firm Lapindo Brantas Inc. had not been serious in using the technology, he said.
Lapindo, which is connected to the family of Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare, Aburizal Bakrie, was widely blamed for the disaster that cost it some Rp 3.2 trillion (US$335 million) in compensation to victims.
Rudi said since its eruption almost two years ago, the mudflow had inundated 700 hectares in Sidoarjo and displaced thousands of families.
The declaration ceremony also saw the launch of a book, Kill Lapindo Mudflow: Saving the Nation, People's lives and State Money, which was co-written by movement members including Solahuddin, Rudi, Kersam, Syafii Maarif and Mustiko Saleh.
Separately, Andy Darussalam, vice president of PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya, a subsidiary of Lapindo Brantas, said in Sidoarjo that whatever the status of the mudflow, be it man-made or a natural disaster, the company would continue payment of the remaining 80 percent of its compensation to victims.
But he said Minarak would not be responsible for victims living in areas outside the boundaries of the Lapindo mudflow, which were specified in a 2007 presidential regulation on the Sidoarjo mudflow.