Marunda Still Sustains Coal Dust, The DKI Provincial Government Is Called Not Learning From Experience

Illustration-(DOC VOI)

JAKARTA - Pollution of coal dust in the Rusunawa Marunda area, Cilincing, North Jakarta is an endless problem experienced by residents. Public lawyer for LBH Jakarta Jihan Fauziah Hamdi views that the DKI Provincial Government has not learned from the experience of air pollution that they have previously followed up with the imposition of sanctions for revocation of environmental permits for perpetrators of pollution, namely PT KCN. "We consider that to this day, both the DKI Jakarta Provincial LH Office and the North Jakarta LH Sub-Department have not learned from the experience of environmental pollution carried out by PT KCN previously," Jihan said in his statement, Thursday, December 22. This, said Jihan, can be seen with the still bad data collection and provision of information transparently to affected residents. This is because so far residents have had to file a complaint before being followed up. In addition, the important note is that the results of the monitoring are incomplete and comprehensive, so that the data presented does not answer the need for pollution. This is based on the fact that coal dust pollution is still happening after the imposition of sanctions on companies has occurred since September 3, 2022, but monitoring has only been carried out for 9 to 11 days. "So, it can be doubted that the results are because in fact in the field there is still coal dust that reaches the hallways of residents' houses," said Jihan. Jihan continued, during the monitoring process, the DKI Provincial Government did not provide the results or data provided to residents. He also considered that so far the function of monitoring environmental pollution in the Marunda area was not running well and optimally. "This of course has violated the right to information because both the person in charge of activities/business and government officials failed to inform as soon as possible regarding air pollution that occurred," he added. As previously reported, so far, there is one company that has stopped its environmental permit, namely PT Karya Citra Nusantara, which has not yet operated again. Then, based on the results of supervision, the DKI LH Office still found four companies that were still emitting coal smoke on the recoop in their loading and unloading activities. However, the Head of the DKI Jakarta LH Service, Asep Kuswanto, said that the emission levels in the four companies were still below the quality standard set by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK). "There are 4 companies that do use coal. We have checked the standard for the quality of the tadpole and it is still below the quality standard. We are still checking whether there are other companies that have potential. That's why now we have put SPKU in Marunda to measure air quality," said Asep. Meanwhile, regarding the contamination of coal dust, Asep admitted that companies whose operations using coal cannot be completely clean from air pollution. Even though the emission level is still below the quality standard, the smoke that comes out through thelaw can still fly and be carried towards the Marunda Flats. "The name is coal, whatever comes out of the recoop, even if it's a little. A little bit of ash flies, maybe it's what the wind ends up carrying and getting to the flats. So, it really happened like that," explained Asep.