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nchanted by the beauty of the Cheonggyecheon in Seoul, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said that he wished for the Ciliwung river, the main river dividing the capital Jakarta, to be as clean as its counterpart in South Korea during a recent state visit to the country.

However, it might take more than just a wish to realize the goal as it has been revealed that Jakarta’s rivers are suffering from an increase in pollution.

The Jakarta Environment Agency recorded that 61 percent of the city’s rivers are heavily polluted cesspools of industrial, household and human waste.

The level of E. coli in the upstream part of the Ciliwung river, for instance, is 40 times greater than the standard level stipulated in the 2001 government regulation on the management of water quality and control of water pollution, according to data from the agency.

The agency’s deputy head, Ali Maulana Hakim, said his office tested water samples from 90 spots in rivers and tributaries across Jakarta and found that pollution levels were increasing each year.

Jakarta has 13 rivers and dozens of tributaries.

In 2014, the agency found that 32 percent of rivers in the capital were heavily polluted. The pollution nearly doubled to 61 percent in 2017, he said.

The Environment and Forestry Ministry classifies river pollution into three categories: lightly polluted, polluted and heavily polluted.

From the samples, it was also revealed that around 73 percent of the river pollution came from household waste aka untreated greywater (household wastewater from places like sinks and baths) and black water aka fecal waste.

Commercial areas accounted for 17 percent of the pollution while industrial activities contributed to about 10 percent of the pollution.

The city administration is currently arranging a road map as part of efforts to restore the water quality in Jakarta rivers and to reduce the overall pollution level to 30 percent, Ali said.

“We plan to finish the road map in September and begin the river restoration project late this year,” Ali told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan said the city administration aimed not only to beautify the rivers and clean the water, but also to restore their functions.

“We want to restore the rivers so they will return to natural ecosystems,” Anies said recently.

In addition to making a road map for the river revitalization, the Environment Agency would also monitor and enforce stricter regulations on industrial activities and commercial buildings. Ali said the agency raided 1,045 offices and industries in 2017 and found that 497 buildings had dumped untreated waste to nearby rivers.

The poor quality of the city’s rivers made headlines after the city administration covered the Sentiong river with a giant nylon net ahead of the 2018 Asian Games. Located near the athletes village in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, the river, known as Kali Item (Black River), is infamous for its murky and smelly water.

City officials blamed the pollution on households and a tofu factory that operated near the river.

A lack of wastewater treatment plants (IPALs) in the capital has contributed to the pollution. Located in the Setiabudi Reservoir in Central Jakarta, there is only one facility owned by the administration that can effectively treat the city’s wastewater — and it treats only two percent.

The administration planned to develop a communal IPAL facility in some subdistricts as they costed less and posed fewer risks to other existing utility systems, Anies said.

The executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) Jakarta, Tubagus Soleh Ahmadi, said that, as the development of IPALs might take time, the Jakarta administration could reduce pollution by enforcing regulations that prohibit the dumping of untreated waste into rivers.

“Permit revocations could create a deterrent effect. The river pollution is worsening because the city administration can’t enforce the prevailing regulations,” he said, adding that river restoration could only succeed if the Jakarta administration involved the administrations of its satellites cities, such as Bogor, Depok and Tangerang.