Mud Flood of Mount Slamet Disrupts Clean Water Service in Banyumas

JAKARTA - Acting President Director of Perumdam Tirta Satria Banyumas Wipi Supriyanto said the mud flood at the foot of Mount Slamet had an impact on a number of springs, disrupting the provision of clean water to customers in several areas of Banyumas Regency.

"Several springs at the foot of Mount Slamet were affected by mud floods, so that the water mixed with mud material entered our brown capturing and automatically affected the processing and service to customers," he said as quoted by ANTARA, Tuesday, January 27.

He said that the mud flood that occurred on Saturday (24/1) early morning caused Perumdam Tirta Satria to have to dispose of mud and murky water in the distribution network, so that customer service was temporarily disrupted.

According to him, the condition had improved and the water had started to clear up, but the rain had started to fall again and triggered a subsequent mud flood.

"Slowly it has started to improve and become clear again, but suddenly there was mud again because of the flood (in the Gunung Slamet area) yesterday afternoon, so it had an impact again," he explained.

In addition, he said, a number of water sources were also blocked by mud so that the water discharge was reduced and caused the service to not be fully normal, especially in the southern Banyumas area.

In fact, he continued, the level of turbidity of raw water had reached 20 thousand Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTU), far above the normal threshold of around 600 NTU.

He said that under certain conditions, Perumdam Tirta Satria was forced to continue processing water with a turbidity level of up to 3,000 NTU so that services could continue even though they were not optimal.

"If it is above standard, of course it needs more materials and that is a waste, but we will try to make sure that customers still get water," he said.

As a last step, he said, Perumdam Tirta Satria also distributed clean water using a tanker to affected areas, although the distribution has not been able to reach all customers evenly.

He said based on the latest report, the water conditions at a number of points have now begun to clear up.

However, he continued, the equalization of water pressure is estimated to still take a few days.

"Now it has started to be normal, some points are clear. For pressure, maybe two days later it will feel more normal," he said.

Regarding this, Wipi apologized to all customers for the service disruption and hoped that the public could be patient because the disruption was triggered by natural factors that were beyond the control of the manager.

One of the residents of Puri Wiradadi 3, Wiradadi Village, Sokaraja District, Banyumas, Woto said that the flow of water Perumdam Tirta Satria in the housing was known to be dead since Sunday (25/1) early morning.

"The information we received, it was because the water treatment installation from the Serayu River in Pegalongan Village was disrupted due to mud floods. Thank God in the last two days, our residents have received clean water assistance from Perumdam," said the Secretary of RT 08 RW 04 Desa Wiradadi.