[Kabar-indonesia] Dumping mud water into sea to be last resort: Rachmat

[Joyo at aol.com]

The Jakarta Post 
Friday, September 1, 2006

Dumping mud water into sea to be last resort: Rachmat

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government says channeling treated water from the hot mud gushing out of 
a gas well in East Java is a last resort it will take only if series of 
attempted fixes fails to stop the mudflow.

The plan to dump the water into nearby Madura Strait is drawing strong 
protests from environmentalists and residents.

"Not a single drop of mud water has been put in the sea at this point. At 
present, siphoning off the treated water is merely a plan to face the worst case 
scenario," State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said Wednesday.

He added, however, that more than half of the 20 kilometer pipeline that 
would be needed to channel the treated water had already been built by Lapindo 
Brantas Inc. Lapindo owns the Banjar Panji-1 exploratory gas well, which is 
spewing hot mud from some 2,600 meters underground.

"Should we be forced to do it, we would allow only treated water to be 
disposed of in the sea," he added.

He said that in the meantime, the government and Lapindo would continue 
channeling the sludge into ponds with makeshift embankments.

The embankments are expected to be able to contain the flowing mud for the 
next five months, the minister added. "Hopefully we'll manage to stop the 
mudflow earlier, so we don't have to channel the water to the sea."

The mudflow started May 29. So far it has submerged about 160 hectares in 
Porong district, Sidoarjo regency, displacing about 8,300 people.

The mud has flooded five villages. Its volume totals at least four million 
cubic meters, according to a government report, and is increasing by some 50,000 
cubic meters per day.

Gempur Adnan, the State Environment Ministry's deputy minister for pollution 
control, dismissed concerns that the upcoming rainy season would increase the 
volume of the toxic mud and cause floods across the district.

"Our experts believe rain will not mix with the mud, and will run off," he 
said.

But environmentalists argue that if the mudflow cannot be halted by October, 
the predicted start of rainy season, the rain will cause floods because the 
embankments will not be able to hold the increased amount of liquid.

"It's true that the rainwater will not add to the mud volume, but it will 
push the embankments to collapse," said Riza Damanik, a marine activist with the 
Indonesian Forum for the Environment.

Faiz Shahab, director and chief operating officer of PT Energi Mega Persada, 
Lapindo's parent company, said the company is making a last effort to cut off 
the mudflow.

"Since our previous two plans failed to hinder the mudflow, we're now 
executing our third scenario: creating relief wells in three locations," he told a 
press gathering Wednesday in Jakarta.

He said if the final scenario failed to solve the problem, Lapindo would not 
make further efforts to cut off the sludge. "We don't have a fourth scenario. 
If it can't be stopped, then we have to look at the fact that it may have 
nothing to do with Banjar Panji-1 well," Faiz said.

Lapindo is partly owned by the giant mining firm PT Energi Mega Persada, 
which is controlled by the family of Coordinating Minister for the People's 
Welfare Aburizal Bakrie. 

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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