Living with Itches for Years

KOMPAS/KURNIA YUNITA RAHAYU

A resident dumps black and foul-smelling water is taken from a well near the Pisang Batu River, Tarumajaya district, Bekasi regency, West Java. The river has become clogged with garbage over the last month.

Tika, 35, could not stop scratching the blistered right side of her neck. It had been itching for two days since she took a bath using polluted groundwater. It turned out that the symptom was common in her neighborhood.

“This is nothing. I am used to this itchy feeling,” said the resident of neighborhood unit (RT) 002 of community unit (RW) 004 in Setiamulya village, Tarumajaya district, Bekasi regency, West Java, on Thursday (10/1/2019), while showing Kompas her neck. The reddish rash was most visible on the right side of her neck but could also be seen around her neck and on her arms.

Tika usually does nothing about the rash or itch, unless she cannot stand it anymore. “Only then will I go to the Puskesmas (community health center). It immediately goes away afterward,” she said.

Tika, a native of Setiamulya, believes the itch stems from her using groundwater for baths. Since she was small, the groundwater at her home has always been of poor quality. It is murky, smelly and you can find deposits of a blackish powder when you let the water settle. “Water from my well looks a lot like river water,” she said, referring to the Pisang Batu river some 3 kilometers away from her home.

Other than for bathing, Tika and her family use the groundwater for washing clothes, dishes, and rice.

Saali, 70, voiced similar complaints. “I often have itches. It’s not just my family. It’s as if everyone in the village takes turns to go to the Puskesmas just for their itchy skin,” he said.

In the alleyway where Saali’s home is located, there are more than 10 homes side by side, all of which stand on the riverbank.

Setiamulya Puskesmas head Susi confirmed that locals often had itches. However, she said, the number of locals coming to the Puskesmas for itches had not increased significantly in recent months.

Locals in Setiamulya said the groundwater had become increasingly poor in the past month, as trash had piled up on a 1.5-km stretch of the Pisang Batu riverbank.

As the mostly plastic trash has piled up, the water has blackened and a stench is spreading.

Dadang Fadilah, 38, who was born and raised in Setia Asih village, Tarumajaya, said the piling waste was not a new problem. The water, which comes from the Bancong River in Bekasi, had long been polluted.

Bancong River lies in Pejuang subdistrict, Medan Satria district, Bekasi city, and borders on Setia Asih village in Tarumajaya, Bekasi regency.

“Trash first piled up in Bancong River in 2004. At the time, [the pile of trash stuck in the river] was 600 meters long,” Dadang said. It was too difficult to carry away and would only disappear when the area was flooded. The solid waste then flowed into Pisang Baru River and onto the Jakarta Bay.

Setia Asih village assembly head Muksin said another pile of solid trash was found in 2007. At the time, he and several other locals identified the types of waste and monitored the water quality for a whole year. “Our conclusion at the time was that the waste was dominated by wet market waste and domestic waste,” he said.

Furthermore, the river was also contaminated with industrial waste. Several factories are located in the river’s upstream area of Kaliabang, Bekasi.

The river is polluted all the way downstream to Blencong River in Marunda, North Jakarta. Locals can no longer use the river water for bathing, as it will cause itchy skin. The white shrimp population in local fish ponds also decreased significantly because of water pollution in the river (Kompas, 12/3/2007).

Threat

Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB) water expert Suprihatin said the dirty river water affected the groundwater in residents’ wells. “Water is absorbed from the nearest sources. It will not take a long time for the pollution to spread to the groundwater,” he said.

The pollution risk increases in wells located near rivers, with biological pollution that can lead to dysentery and skin diseases.

Other threats may emerge on chemically polluted rivers. “Chemical pollution can lead to long-term and more severe effects than biological pollution,” Suprihatin said.

Therefore, there had to be efforts to reduce the effects, including by reducing groundwater use. However, this is not easy, as people living on riverbanks have limited financial resources. “I cannot pay for clean water [from the regional water company PDAM],” Tika said.

The mother of seven does not work, and her husband only does odd jobs with uncertain income. The family can only afford one refillable 19-liter bottle of drinking water priced at Rp 5,000 (35 US cents) to meet daily needs.

Even if PDAM pipes went into Tika’s neighborhood in Tarumajaya district, only those residing at least in middle-class housing would be able to afford the service.

Tika remains resourceful. She said she had tried many things to purify the well water, including filtering it with cloth. “To wash my children’s school uniforms, I usually go to my sister’s home in another village,” she said. Tika and other Setiamulya residents have no idea how long they can live like this.