The Jakarta Government was on the receiving end of wide-ranging criticism last week after it became clear that their main plan for 鈥渇ixing鈥 the terrible sight and smells of the Sentiong Canal 聽鈥 located right next to the government-built accommodations for athletes coming to Jakarta for next month鈥檚 Asian Games 鈥 was to simply cover up the canal with a 689-meter curtain of black nylon mesh.
Not only was this 鈥渟olution鈥 lambasted for being almost the literal definition of 鈥渟weeping the problem under the rug鈥, many doubted whether the porous mesh covering would be able to fulfill its secondary goal of keeping the canal鈥檚 foul odors from leaking out into the surrounding area and disturbing the visiting athletes staying in Kemayoran鈥檚 Wisma Atlet (Athlete鈥檚 Village).
But rather than take the criticism, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has doubled down on his administration鈥檚 solution and said that he would expand the smell-reducing river covers to other waterways in the capital, should they prove effective.
“We’ll see their effectiveness, if this one proves successful, we will do it in other places as well, we don鈥檛 want to experiment in all places at once,” Anies said while inspecting the canal, which is better known as the Kali Item (Black Canal), according to .
Anies said that officials would be closely monitoring the river over the next month to see how effective the curtains are at taming the noxious canal鈥檚 odors.
He also reiterated his previous defense for not simply starting work dredging the river months earlier, saying that the source of the bad smells was actually the waste being poured into the river from numerous sources聽further upstream, which dredging couldn鈥檛 solve.
“It’s not dredging that鈥檚 the problem, but because there are multiple sources of pollutants, not just one but many, it’s a lot of water sources from lots of households and home industries,” the governor said.
Previously, officials said they were also using other methods to eliminate the canal鈥檚 bad smell, including 鈥渘ano bubble鈥 technology from Singapore as well as a water waste filter machine they saida couple of months ago (although that plan seems to have fallen through or been ineffective).
Vice Governor Sandiaga Uno told the media that the decision to put up the mesh was made by himself and Governor Anies Baswedan after they received requests to fix Kali Item problem by the Asian Games鈥 organizers.
