Polluted Indonesian river to get $500m clean-up

Jessica Aldred and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Friday December 5 2008 10.17 GMT

One of the world's most polluted rivers, the Citarum in Indonesia, is to get a major clean-up that is hoped to improve the lives of millions of people, the Asian Development Bank announced today.
The Manila-based lender has agreed to provide a $500m (£340m) loan package to the Indonesian government support the restoration of the river basin, which supports a population of 28 million people, delivers 20% of Indonesia's gross domestic product, and provides 80% of water supply to the capital, Jakarta.
Rapid urbanisation over the last 20 years has seen a rise in untreated household sewage, solid waste and industrial effluents, affecting public health and threatening the livelihood of poor fishing families, the bank said.
The loan package will be delivered over the next 15 years, and will support sanitation projects and construction of waste treatment plants in the river basin to provide safe water supply to poor families who use the polluted river for fishing, bathing and laundry.
"Rapid urbanisation, climate change, environmental degradation, public health and food security are all important issues challenging water resources management in Asia and the Pacific region," said Christopher Morris, an ADB senior water resources engineer.
The loan also will allow the cultivation of an additional 61,700 acres (25,000 hectares) of rice paddy, benefiting 25,000 farming families, he said.
The river management programme also aims to supply water to 200,000 more households in Jakarta. It will ultimately increase Jakarta's water supply by 2.5% yearly, and benefit millions by resolving critical water shortages in Bandung, Indonesia's fourth largest city, the bank said.
Last month new research found that severe pollution has made one-third of China's Yellow river unusable.
Known as the country's "mother river", it supplies water to millions of people in the north of China. But in recent years the quality has deteriorated due to factory discharges and sewage from fast-expanding cities.
Much of it is now unfit even for agricultural or industrial use, the study showed.