JAKARTA, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The repeated dumping of oil in the waters near
the Indonesia's Riau Islands is causing serious environmental damage, the head
of a waste management group says.
Tankers in the Malacca Strait are believed to dispose of the oil when
cleaning their tanks.
The chairman of the Association of Batam Toxic and Hazardous Waste Management
Companies (Aspel B3) named only Kurniawan said on Friday that waste
from illegal tank cleaning activities in the waters between Indonesia and
Singapore ended up polluting the province almost every year.
Foreign tankers usually dump the waste in Indonesian waters, he explained.
It eventually winds up on Batam, Bintan and Karimun islands.
"Many foreign tankers do their own cleaning to save costs. They just have to
buy the containers and dump them in the sea," Kurniawan who was quoted by the
Jakarta Post as saying Saturday.
The government has so far been unable to catch the perpetrators or prevent
the problem from recurring.
The latest case of waste dumping was reported in Bakau Serip village, Nongsa,
Batam, at the end of December. Hundreds of sludge oil containers were
found scattered on the beach and leaking into the sea, hurting the livelihoods
of local fishermen.
The officers of the Environmental Impact Control Agency (Bappedal) in Batam
island have collected hundreds of containers and will ship them to the toxic and
hazardous waste disposal center in Cileungsi, Bogor, West Java, to be destroyed.
According to Kurniawan, there is an urgent need for the government to establish
a monitoring agency on sea pollution, with the aid of a satellite to
track down the responsible parties.
"The Malacca Strait only provides benefits to Malaysia and Singapore, while
we are the ones being disadvantaged by the busy ship traffic. We must do
something so as not to be on the short end of the deal forever," said Kurniawan.
The head of the Batam Bappedal, Mawardi Badar, said the waste dumping had seriously affected fishermen in the province.
