Ground water quality severely worsened in several of Bali's most
popular tourism areas, including Nusa Dua, which hosts the ongoing
two-week UN climate change conference, The Jakarta Post
reported on Friday.
Poor ground water quality and contamination has been blamed on
the area's ever-increasing production of waste and garbage, the
report said.
"The ground water and wells in Nusa Dua, Tanjung Benoa and
Legian areas are so heavily contaminated that the water is unfit
for human consumption," said I Ketut Sundra, a lecturer at
Indonesia's Udayana State University's biology department, quoted
by the newspaper.
Ketut, who is a member of the water quality monitoring team
established by the island's Environment Agency to conduct an annual
assessment on the island's water quality, made his statement based
on his 2005 research, which was carried out in both wet and dry
seasons.
The most recent government-sanctioned water quality assessment
was conducted early this December, he said.
However, he declined to disclose the full results of the
assessment.
His 2006 research revealed the ground water and wells in Nusa
Dua, Tanjung Benoa and Legian -- the center of the Bali island's
mass tourism-oriented development -- were contaminated by
significant levels of total dissolved solids (TDS), a technical
term for anything present in the water other than the pure water
molecule (H20) and suspended solids.
Other contaminants were nitrogen oxide (NO2) and coli
bacteria.
The ground water and wells also showed a high level of
phosphate, biological oxygen demand (BOD5) and chemical oxygen
demand (COD).
Ketut blamed the contamination on the heavy level of human
activities in the areas. The growing human population, combined
with poor waste and garbage management, has also aggravated
contamination of the ground water and wells in the areas, he
said.
The local authority must address the water quality problem
immediately, otherwise, it could give rise to other damaging
problems, he warned.
Bali, well known as "the Goddess Island" , is a resort island of
Indonesia. With a population of over 3 million, it is the country's
largest tourist destination.
(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2007)
