The Jakarta Globe, November 03, 2012
Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo was pleased at the sight before him when he arrived at the Manggarai flood gate in South Jakarta on Saturday: a relatively clean, unobstructed waterway.
The typical pileup of stinking waste at the site was dramatically diminished, with one dredging machine still removing the remaining debris from the water.
“I’m happy that the water level of the Manggarai flood gate is normal,” Jokowi said on Saturday. “It is also clean from waste. But I hope people [living around Manggarai] stay alert because there is information that there will be downstream flooding.”
However, Jokowi said all of Jakarta’s flood gates were ready for the coming rainy season’s inundation, caused both by local rains and downstream flooding. The latter occurs when rain runoff from Jakarta’s higher-elevation surrounding regions, such as Bogor and Puncak in West Java, makes its way down to the capital region.
Jokowi said he had made an agreement with the West Java governor to cooperate on creating absorption wells in Ciawi, West Java.
“The officers and boats are ready for flooding, [they] only need some briefing,” Jokowi said, adding that local Jakarta officials such as neighborhood unit chiefs, subdistrict chiefs and mayors should set the example through clean, environmentally conscious living.
“I have only worked as governor briefly,” he said. “Meanwhile flooding requires a long-term solution. It will be [solved] faster if the leaders set the example.”
A Manggarai flood gate management official said the accumulated waste was often carried to Jakarta due to downstream flooding. Recently, the amount of waste had increased by up to 160 cubic meters per day, according to Parjono.
“Since the governor [first visited last week], we have kept on dredging the waste,” Parjono said. “So when the rain comes, there will be no more waste blocking the water flow. We took the waste to Bantar Gebang dump site.”
zo 4 nov 2012 - 3:26
