Empty Promises Leave Jakarta Dry

September 05, 2011


A chaotic morning could be in store for the millions of Jakartans heading back to work today after the long holiday, with the promised weekend solution to the capital’s water crisis failing to materialize.

Despite promises that the burst dike in East Jakarta’s Kalimalang River would be fixed by the end of the weekend, an official confirmed on Sunday that clean water will not flow through the taps of the hundreds of thousands of affected homes and businesses on Monday morning.

“Even if the [raw] water supply arrives at Pejompongan [treatment facility] at midnight [on Sunday], the earliest customers will receive it would be noon [on Monday],” PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja) corporate communications head Meyritha Maryanie told the Jakarta Globe.

Palyja is the worst-affected of Jakarta’s two water operators, with about 60 percent of its customers in Central, West and North Jakarta not having access to sanitized water since midnight on Wednesday, a few hours after the dike burst. The water crisis has already forced people to join long queues to buy water from expensive resellers over the past four days. It also affected shopping centers, some of which were forced to close unsanitary toilets.

The situation is expected to worsen as hundreds of thousands of travelers return to the capital after Idul Fitri celebrations. As of Sunday, the Jakarta Transportation Office said more than 900,000 travelers, not including those who took motorcycles, had returned.

Earlier on Sunday, officials were optimistic a solution had been reached after 60 sheet piles were installed to fill the gap in the dike.

The plan had been to let the raw water flow again by 5 p.m., after which it was expected to arrive at the Pejompongan plant in Central Jakarta at about 10 p.m.

Processing into clean water was then expected to take four hours, according to Sriwidayanto, the technical director with city water company PAM Jaya.

Customers living near Pejompongan were told to expect their water supply to resume early on Monday, while the rest should receive their supply “at Monday night or Tuesday morning,” Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said.

Hasanudin, an adviser from the Citarum River Dam in West Java, said on Sunday that the installation of the sheet piles was done by 3 p.m., but later in the day the expected flow of water did not materialize. Officials have not been able to provide an explanation for the new delay.

Fauzi said that given the unstable supply of clean water, he had issued instructions for water tanks to be distributed, prioritizing densely populated and low-income areas.

The repair of the breached dike has been dogged by problems ranging from workers on holiday to broken spare parts. So far, the work being done is temporary. Permanent repair of the breach would take about a year and cost up to Rp 2 billion ($234,000).

Mohammad Amron, an official with the national Public Works Ministry, said the cause of the collapse had not been determined. But Fauzi said he will not question who was responsible for the damage: “The important thing is the repairs, so that people can get clean water.”


(X the JG)

I do not understand:
The Amsterdam Water Company has a twinning agreement with the water supply of Jakarta.
Why does not help the Amsterdam company?
They can help, but they do not ........

Typical Amsterdam mentality .... promise a lot, but doing nothing........


DK

"Mokum" helping bro K'nijn? Not quite next door I would say, the dike along that river burst only a few days ago, they fixed the breach but now they do not know where the water has gone to, perhaps some clever person diverted it into a pond and is selling the water at a handsome profit! Perhaps Greater Jakarta is hoping to receive air tawar van uit een selokan like de "Heerengracht"Hahaha, see you bye-byes, siK.

Pak Kesas,
You call it

Citaat :

air tawar

, but I think it is air bebek (dari selokan).

This is very sad for the inhabitants of that part of Jakarta.

I hope they get soon better water.

Thank you for your reply.

Best greetings,

DK

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Mon 09/05/2011 2:20 PM


Water supply firm PT Pam Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja) says its water supply that was disrupted after the recent collapse of the Buaran Dam will be back to normal within the next few days.

“It will take a few days before things get back to normal. We’re depending on the West Tarum canal,” PT Palyja corporate communications chief Meyritha Maryanie said Monday as quoted by kompas.com.

Meyritha added that as of 6 a.m. Monday, the Water Management Installation in Pejompongan, Central Jakarta, was receiving around 3,700 liters of raw water per second, way below the normal supply of up to 6,000 liters per second.

Meyritha further explained that once the supply returned to normal more time would be needed to distribute water to customers.

“For example, if the raw water supply is back to normal on Tuesday, distribution to North Jakarta will be back to normal on Wednesday or Thursday,” she said.

As for potential compensation for customers affected by the outage, Meyritha said the matter had not been discussed.

“Don’t talk about compensation. We have not to discussed that yet,” she said.

Palyja's water supply was cut on Wednesday night following the collapse of a floodgate at Buaran Dam in East Jakarta, causing the company to cut off water supplies to around 250,000 of its customers.