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Category: Lapindo di Media

  • Harapan Baru untuk “Cash and Carry”

    korbanlumpur.info – Sorak sorai langsung terdengar ketika Suwito, perwakilan warga yang masuk dan ditemui bupati keluar dan menyampaikan hasil pertemuan di pendopo Kabupaten Sidoarjo. Korban lapindo sudah beberapa kali harus berdemo ke Bupati untuk mempertanyakan nasibnya, juga beberapa kali sudah sujud syukur ketika tuntutan mereka seolah terpenuhi, dan mereka sudah lelah ditipu, lalu, apalagi yang baru sekarang?

    Siang itu (05/08/2008), matahari sudah bergeser dan warga yang menunggu di luar pendopo kabupaten masih bertanya-tanya dalam hati, apakah betul asset tanah warga yang Petok D dan Letter C bisa di-AJB-kan, yang artinya bisa mendapatkan ganti rugi secara cash and carry? Sementara di dalam, Perwakilan warga yang ditemui Bupati menyampaikan segala harapan dan tuntutannya.

    Dengan membawa sebendel bukti berisi peraturan-peraturan dan risalah rapat serta komitmen pihak-pihak terkait, warga mengadu dan meminta Bupati merespon tuntutan warga untuk segera dibayar ganti rugi asset mereka secara cash and carry. Sudah lama mereka diombang-ambingkan dan digoyang isu-isu dan informasi yang tidak jelas. Pihak Minarak lapindo Jaya setelah melaukan pertemuan dengan GKLL menyatakan tidak akan melaksanakan pembayaran dengan pola cash and carry kepada warga korban lumpur yang bukti kepemilikan petok D/letter C/SK Gogol dalam kondisi dan situasi apapun (tempointeraktif, 26 Juni 2008).

    Pasca pernyataan itu, tentu saja korban lumpur yang mayoritas memiliki bukti asset berupa Petok D dan Letter C resah, tidak ada angin tidak ada hujan mereka yang sudah berharap segera menerima sisa ganti rugi 80% karena masa kontrakannya habis kembali menelan pil pahit. Jika sebelumnya mereka melalui GKLL giat menuntut cash and carry, namun akhirnya cash and resettlement yang didapat.

    Pihak Minarak lapindo Jaya berkilah bahwa pemilik asset dengan bukti kepemilikan Petok D dan Letter C tidak bisa di-AJB-kan. Padahal Badan Pertanahan Nasional sudah mengeluarkan surat pada tanggal 24 Maret 2008 mengenai mekanisme AJB untuk semua bukti kepemilikan (Sertifikat, Petok D, Letter C, SK Gogol, Yasan serta tanah asset Pemda dan yang berstatus HGB). Belum lagi jika merujuk pada banyak risalah rapat dan komitmen yang bukan hanya ditanda tangani Andi Darusalam selaku Vice President PT Minarak lapindo jaya tetapi juga pejabat negara baik daerah maupun pusat, yang jelas menyatakan bahwa Petok D, Letter C dsb diperlakukan sama dengan sertifikat dan berhak mendapat ganti rugi yang sama.

    Namun semua itu seolah menguap, dan komitmen yang ditanda tangani seolah tidak ada. Lalu, pada tanggal 25 Juni 2008, keluarlah pernyataan itu: ʽPT MLJ tak akan melaksanakan pembayaran dengan pola cash and carry kepada warga korban lumpur yang bukti kepemilikan petok D/letter C/SK Gogol dalam kondisi dan situasi apapunʼ Perih dan menyakitkan!’

    Namun, sorak-sorai pada 5 Agustus 2008 di depan Pendopo Kabupaten kemarin seolah memberikan titik cahaya kepada mereka yang memilih untuk tetap menuntut hak mereka secara cash and carry. Bupati Sidoarjo, Badan Pertanahan Nasional, dan Badan Penanggulangan Lumpur Sidoarjo menyatakan bahwa semua asset warga dengan bukti kepemilikan Petok D, Letter C, SK Gogol bisa di-AJB-kan dan Pihak lapindo harus menunaikan kewajibannya membayar sisa ganti rugi 80% secara cash and carry.

    Bukan akhir dari segalanya memang, masih butuh perjuangan untuk tetap menuntut tanggung jawab Lapindo dalam mengganti rugi asset warga yang telah tenggelam. Mereka mengepalkan tangan dan berteriak mengungkapkan kegembiraannya. Bapak-bapak dan kaum muda meloncat-loncat mengekspresikan kelegaannya, beberapa ibu terlihat menangis terharu mendengar berita itu. Harapan itu masih ada dan terjaga, harapan untuk mendapatkan lagi kehidupan mereka yang telah ditenggelamkan oleh Lapindo baik dengan lumpur maupun dengan tindakan-tindakan mereka yang mengingkari hak-hak warga.

    Sorak sorai itu terdengar optimis, kelegaan yang menyeruak setelah kegundahan akan terbayarnya aset mereka terjawab. Tapi perjuangan tidak boleh hanya berhenti pada kelegaan.

  • Muddy waters in polluter’s award

    What do you get for instigating a nation’s worst human-made disaster, flooding 600 hectares with toxic mud from an unsafe gas well, cutting key highways and displacing about 40,000 people? In Indonesia, you get a government award for complying with safety and environmental standards.

    A public relations campaign by gas company Lapindo, owned by the Peoples Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie, has been boosted by the Environment Ministry’s. Since a drilling well erupted in an unstoppable torrent of mud in East Java two years ago, Lapindo has gone to extraordinary lengths to escape blame.

    Yesterday, Environment Ministry officials chuckled when asked about Lapindo’s gong after an environmental audit of more than 500 companies, then declined to be quoted.

    Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar expressed some scepticism, saying he had questioned the “auditing team about the validity of the ranking, as some big companies which have come under public scrutiny earned a better ranking”.

    The award demonstrated the Government’s toothlessness in dealing with major polluters, according to environment watchdog, Walhi. The decision, under an official auditing program called Proper, was “simply improper”, spokesman Pius Ginting said.

    “There is nothing serious Lapindo does to handle the mud flow,” Mr Ginting said. “They threw the mud into the sea through the Porong River.”

    A Lapindo spokeswoman, Yuniati Terryana, said the company was delighted with the award, deflecting questions about the mud flow’s damage.

    “Where should we dump the mud into then?” she asked. “We did it to the sea after obtaining green light from the Government.

    “We continue to keep our operations in accordance to the health, safety and environment standards despite the mud flow.”

    Although Lapindo claims an earthquake more than 250 kilometres away caused the disaster, an authoritative scientific study has pinpointed negligence and cost cutting.

    Drillers failed to use a safety casing for the exploratory well near the town of Sidoarjo, resulting in discharge of 1 million barrels of mud a day, international experts from Berkeley University, Durham University and Adelaide University found.

    Lapindo was awarded a blue certificate by the Proper audit, stating it met environmental and safety standards. Privately, one Environment Ministry official said the audit examined nearby Lapindo sites but excluded the mud flow as it was considered a natural disaster.

    Mark Forbes, Jakarta (The Age)

  • Bapedal Ragu atas Penelitian Walhi

    SURABAYA – Badan Pengendalian Dampak Lingkungan (Bapedal) Jawa Timur meragukan penelitian Wahana Lingkungan Hidup (Walhi) yang menyatakan lumpur Lapindo di Sidoarjo mengandung Policyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) yang bisa menyebabkan penyakit kanker bagi manusia.

    “Kita harus lihat dulu, apakah penelitian itu sudah benar caranya dan apakah laboratoriumnya punya akreditasi. Di Surabaya hanya dua laboratorium yang benar-benar bisa dipercaya,” kata Dewi J. Patriatni, pelaksana tugas Kepala Bapedal Jawa Timur, kemarin.

    Menurut Dewi, temuan Walhi itu tergolong telat karena lumpur Lapindo sudah menyembur lebih dari dua tahun. “Kenapa baru sekarang dirilis? Toh berbagai kajian sebelumnya tidak ada yang menemukan PAH,” kata Dewi.

    Bapedal, kata Dewi, sudah melakukan kajian, tapi tidak menemukan kandungan PAH. Yang ada hanyalah unsur karbon dan gas metana yang mudah terurai oleh embusan angin. “Dari jarak 500 meter, kandungan gas ini tidak berbahaya,” katanya.

    Meski demikian, kata dia, Bapedal tetap memberi rekomendasi kepada Badan Penanggulangan Lumpur Sidoarjo (BPLS) agar segera mengosongkan kawasan di sekitar semburan.

    Seperti yang pernah diberitakan, berdasarkan penelitian Walhi Jawa Timur, lumpur Lapindo di Porong mengandung PAH yang melebihi ambang batas normal hingga 8 ribu kali lipat.

    Menurut Walhi, kandungan PAH dalam lumpur tersebut berpotensi menyebabkan penyakit kanker dan tumor bagi warga di areal lumpur.

    ROHMAN TAUFIQ (KoranTempo )

  • Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup Menuai Protes

    Lapindo dan Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper mendapat skor tinggi

    JAKARTA – Hasil pemeringkatan perusahaan yang dibuat Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup menuai protes. Sejumlah perusahaan, termasuk PT Lapindo Brantas dan PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper, yang selama ini dinilai telah mendatangkan banyak masalah lingkungan, mendapat skor tinggi dari pemerintah.

    Protes keras datang dari Wahana Lingkungan Hidup (Walhi). Lembaga swadaya masyarakat ini mempertanyakan alat ukur yang digunakan dalam penilaian tersebut.

    Menurut Berry Nahdian Forqan, Direktur Eksekutif Nasional Walhi, ada ketidaksesuaian antara fakta dan hasil pemeringkatan sejumlah perusahaan. “Kami curiga, kriteria yang ada tidak mampu memotret secara nyata perilaku perusahaan dalam pengelolaan lingkungan,” katanya kemarin.

    Dalam hasil penilaian ini terdapat lima peringkat dengan penanda warna emas, hijau, biru, merah, dan hitam. Penilaian didasarkan pada kemampuan perusahaan dalam penanganan pencemaran udara dan air, juga penerapan program tanggung jawab sosial perusahaan.

    Dari 516 perusahaan yang secara sukarela ambil bagian dalam program ini, 180 di antaranya dinyatakan masuk kategori biru, yang merupakan standar minimum pemerintah.

    Dari perusahaan-perusahaan yang masuk kelompok biru, yang mengejutkan, Lapindo termasuk salah satunya. Yang juga mengagetkan, pada kategori hijau terdapat PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper, yang beberapa waktu lalu disidik Kepolisian Daerah Riau dalam kasus pembalakan liar. Perusahaan lain yang masuk kelompok ini ialah PT Toba Pulp Lestari, PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara, dan PT Indah Kiat Pulp and Paper.

    Lapindo dinilai tak layak lolos uji pemerintah karena bencana semburan lumpur di sumur Banjar Panji 1, Porong, Sidoarjo, Jawa Timur, diduga akibat tidak ditaatinya analisis dampak lingkungan oleh perusahaan milik keluarga Bakrie itu saat melakukan pengeboran.

    Akibat bencana itu, tiga desa terendam lumpur dan ribuan warga harus mengungsi. “Berapa orang yang sakit akibat menghirup gas di Porong?” kata Direktur Walhi Bambang Catur Nusantara di Surabaya kemarin. “Belum lagi kerusakan ekosistem akibat lumpur. Apa hal ini tidak dilihat?” ujarnya. Atas dasar itu, “Lapindo harusnya masuk kategori merah atau hitam,” kata Pius Ginting, Pengkampanye Isu Tambang dan Energi Walhi.

    Berry juga mempertanyakan Newmont yang mendapat peringkat hijau dan Freeport yang masuk kategori biru minus, karena dianggap telah menimbulkan banyak masalah lingkungan. Karena itu, Siti Maimunah, Direktur Eksekutif Jaringan Tambang, khawatir hasil penilaian akan merugikan lingkungan dan masyarakat.

    Manajer Senior Hubungan Eksternal Newmont Malik Salim menegaskan status yang diberikan pemerintah menunjukkan keberhasilan perusahaan mengelola dan melindungi lingkungan. Tiga tahun lalu, Newmont juga mendapat penilaian serupa.

    Walhi dan pakar hukum lingkungan Universitas Padjadjaran Daud Silalahi mendukung rencana pemerintah menggugat 13 perusahaan yang masuk kategori hitam dua kali berturut-turut ke pengadilan.

    Daud juga mengusulkan agar perusahaan yang berpotensi merusak lingkungan diwajibkan menjaminkan uangnya di bank. “Kalau ada kerusakan, ganti ruginya langsung diambil dari situ.”

    Maria Hasugian, Rudy Prasetyo, Rohman Taufik, Dianing Tyas, Supriyantho Khafid (Koran Tempo)

  • US Consortium proposes to turn Lapindo Mudflow into Power Plant

    The consortium consists of Houston-based company Vlociti Holding Inc, Sirex PHS, Preston US and Turbo Jacks, the Berlin, Germany-based company which owns the relevant technology. PT Jatayu Sarana Investasi is the project owner/coordinator, as well as acting as their consultant and sub-contractor in Indonesia.

    Vlociti Holding Inc President Director, Taswin Tarib, presented the proposal to the office of Vice President Jusuf Kalla. Representing the Vice President was special staff coordinator, Alwi Hamu, who studied the proposal.

    Taswin said his company is not a newcomer in the geothermal business, having carried out explorations on geothermal sites in the US and Germany, each with more than 300 megawatt source of power.

    Taswin said the electricity generated from geothermal heat in Sidoarjo can be sold to state-owned electricity company PLN for 2-3 Euro cents per kWh, and can contribute towards solving the electricity crisis in Indonesia.

    ““We are not asking for any collateral from the government or the PLN, nor will we use Indonesian government funds. The funds will come from our group,”” he said at the Vice President’s office yesterday.

    Sources : http://indosnesos.blogspot.com/2008/07/us-consortium-proposes-to-turn-lapindo.html

  • TIME “Top 10” Natural Disasters

    #5. Indonesian Mud Volcano

    It wasn’t exactly an act of God — the blame should go to a poorly run natural gas drilling project — but the out-of-control mud flows near the Indonesian city of Surabaya certainly resembled something out of a disaster movie. The problem started in late May, when hot mud broke into a well that had been drilled without proper protective casing. When the company tried to stop up the mud with cement plugs, it eventually flowed to the surface and burst through the ground in a series of foul geysers. By October the mud was flowing at rate of about 170,000 cubic feet a day, utterly submerging neighboring villages and factories, and leaving over 10,000 people homeless. By Bryan Walsh

     

  • Lapindo Lost at International Arbitration

    Lapindo Brantas Incorporated, the company that is the center of attention in the mudflow case in Sidoarjo, East Java, lost to PT Medco Brantas in a trial at international arbitration.

    Independent drilling expert, Robin Lubron, passed on this report to the deputy attorney general for general crimes, Abdul Hakim Ritonga, when accompanying mudflow victims. ““The decision was made several months ago,”” said Lubron yesterday (14/7).

    Lubron explained that according to a prosecution report, Medco Brantas had warned Lapindo to be careful when drilling. He went on to mention 14 matters that were ignored by Lapindo when drilling. These included drilling spots too close to people’s homes, equipment that was not insured, and no protection on the cutting edge of drills.

    Lubron said Lapindo had broken technical rules. “”Hence Lapindo should pay all the damages,”” he said.

    In an edition last June, Tempo magazine covered violations made by Lapindo during its operations. One of these was about warnings from Medco to Lapindo about installing a casing on drills to anticipate a possible leakage but this was ignored.

    Lapindo spokeperson, Yuniwati Teryana denied the decision from international arbitration agency as Medco is no longer a Lapindo shareholder. “”There was arbitration, but there was no follow-up and this was agreed to,”” said Yuniwati yesterday.

    Medco Energy Corporate Secretary, Sisca Alimin, said that they had nothing to do with it anymore. ““I do not know about it because Medco is no longer a shareholder,”” she said yesterday.

    RINI KUSTIANI | ANTON SEPTIAN | DIAN YULIASTUTI | SETRI

  • Experts set for Cape Town, Vexing Mud Flow Cause Disputed

    On May 29, 2006, on the eastern tip of the island of Java in Indonesia, a giant mud volcano erupted, filling the region with a noxious mix of mud, chemicals and, some would say, mendacity. Even before the mud started swallowing up homes and farms and railroad tracks, the questions were being asked.

    Not “why” so much, but “how” and “who.

    John Snedden, an AAPG member who’s a reservoir connectivity prediction supervisor with ExxonMobil, wants to begin to answer those questions; so during the October AAPG International Conference and Exhibition in Cape Town, South Africa, he is putting together a symposium on what caused the disaster – natural or otherwise – now known as Lusi (from lumpur, the Indonesian word for mud).

    ““Mud Volcano: Earthquake or Drilling Trigger?”” will be offered in Cape Town as part of the conference’s technical program.

    Five speakers representing all sides of the debate will give presentations – reportedly the first time advocates from various positions have been in the same room at the same time – followed by questions, discussions amongst panelists and audience participation.

    It will be moderated by a neutral party, AAPG member Jon Gluyas, with Fairfield Energy in Middlesex, England, who will strive to ensure that all views are heard.

    Included in the forum will be:

    • Richard Davies, department of earth sciences, Durham University, Durham, England.
    • Adriano Mazzini, University of Oslo, Norway.
    • Bambang Istadi, with Lapindo Brantas, Indonesia.
    • AAPG member Mark Tingay, with the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences in Perth, Australia.
    • Hasan Abidin, Institute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia.

    A Contentious Debate

    As to the mud volcano’s origins there are two prevalent theories: It was caused by an earthquake, or it was caused by irresponsible drilling by one of the country’s most prestigious oil and gas operators.

    According to Cape Town technical co-chair Snedden, the forum’s purpose is to “draw a line under the scientific controversy” as to whether the mud volcano was caused by PT Lapindo Brantas, a subsidiary of PT Energy Mega Persada Tbk in Indonesia, which was drilling for gas in the Porong, Sidoarjo region, east of Java, or whether Lusi was caused by natural forces, like an earthquake.

    This debate is more than an academic exercise – thousands of homes, millions of people and perhaps billions of dollars are at stake, plus usability and habitability of the land for years to come.

    Lapindo Brantas geologist Bambang Istadi, perhaps not surprisingly, claims the volcano was caused by natural tectonic forces that occurred two days before Lusi in May 2006. On that day an earthquake hit the Yogyakarta region that killed around 6,000 people and some, including Adriano Mazzini from the University of Oslo, point to that event.

    On the other side of the debate, Richard Davies and AAPG member Mark Tingay propose that Lusi was caused by the drilling of the Banjar Panji 1 gas exploration well.

    Whatever happened, the what of what happened is clear. After the mud erupted, 30,000-50,000 residents lost their homes and, at present, the region shows signs of irreversible collapse and devastation. Snedden says before action can be taken on clean up, “We need to agree first on the cause, so we expect an active debate.”

    Complicating the issue even further is the fact the man at the center of the storm, Aburizal Bakrie, is not only Indonesia’s minister for social welfare but also part of the family that controls Lapindo Brantas. Bakrie has called the volcano a “natural disaster” unrelated to the drilling activities.

    Science vs. Politics?

    Snedden may be after the science, but so far certainly from Davies’ perspective it is politics and money that has been mostly contested. In fact, a court in Java has already agreed with Bakrie that Lusi was caused by natural forces, a claim Davies rejects.

    On National Public Radio recently, Davies said the research on the Yogyakarta earthquake proves it was too small and too far away to have caused the chain of events, concluding that Lusi was “almost certainly” caused by drilling in the area. Specifically, Davies believes that a series of operational events led to a subsurface blowout, which meant the fluids within the well and leaked out on to the surface, which caused the explosion.

    As bad as Lusi is, according to Davies, it is not the largest mud volcano (that happened in Azerbaijan), but is the fastest growing. The debate, almost from the beginning, has been contentious one environmentalist in Indonesia called Lusi “the worst environmental crime of the century” – and that is why Snedden believes the time is right to bring the sides together. There are facts that need to be heard and discussed, he believes, and information that needs to be harnessed.

    Snedden said the idea of holding this symposium at an AAPG international conference in South Africa grew out of an assembled collection of data gathered by an AAPG technical program committee. ““We decided to elevate these papers to a special technical forum, given the considerable attention in the popular press but also the importance and impact of this event,”” he said.

    ““Geology really does matter here,”” he added, ““as thousands in Java can attest.””

  • Mining company ‘likely to blame’ for deadly volcano

    A devastating Indonesian mud volcano could not have been caused by a remote earthquake, researchers have said. Instead, they say, the Lusi eruption that began more than two years ago was most likely caused by the mining company failing to properly reinforce a problematic gas well.

    Petroleum geologist Mark Tingay of Curtin University in Western Australia says the volcano was definitely not caused by an earthquake.

    “None of the known methods by which an earthquake could have triggered this are plausible,” he said.

    Since May 2006 the Lusi mud volcano has been burying villages around the east Javanese city of Surabaya. Seventeen people have died as a result of the eruption and around 40,000 are permanently displaced.

    Some scientists, including UK geologist Richard Davies of the University of Durham and colleagues, believe that drilling for gas by the company Lapindo Brantas caused the explosion. Others, including the company, claim it was triggered by an earthquake that occurred two days before, 250 kilometres away near Yogyakarta, which killed 6,000 people.

    Dr Tingay teamed up with Professor Davies and his colleagues to crunch some numbers, including available company data, to see which theory is best supported. The findings are published in the current issue of the journal Geology.

    Not adding up

    Dr Tingay says while remote earthquakes have triggered such events before, the numbers do not add up in this case.

    “The magnitude of the Yogyakarta earthquake was at least 10 times too small to have triggered off any mud volcanic eruption at the Lusi site,” he said. On the other hand, the analysis did support drilling as a cause.

    “All of the key ingredients necessary for a drilling to have caused the mud volcano were there,” Dr Tingay said. “There are critical safety issues that you have to maintain when you drill a well and we feel that a lot of those were breached.”

    Dr Tingay says all wells should be reinforced using a steel and concrete “casing” or reinforcement at regular intervals to help stop fluids flowing into the well. He believes the company failed to properly reinforce a 2,800-metre deep well they were drilling.

    “Setting casing takes up a lot of time and time is money,” he said. “They skipped two planned casing points.”

    Dangerous situation

    Dr Tingay says the company continued drilling and walls of the well eventually gave way. “They got into this dangerous situation. It’s a bit like driving at night in the wet with bad tyres and no lights,” he said.

    The research says 40 to 60 cubic metres of fluid and hydrogen sulphide gas forced its way into the well and up to the surface. The company responded to this by closing off the surface of the well. “It’s effectively like putting a cork in the well,” Dr Tingay said.

    He says the pressure in the well continued to build up enough to fracture the surrounding rock, resulting in an eruption of mud 200 metres away from the well.

    The mud started erupting at about 5,000 – 20,000 cubic metres a day, but is now spewing forth at 100,000 cubic metres a day, and this could continue for over a decade.

    Dr Tingay says dams are being used to hold back the mud, but he is worried is that these dams will break – made more likely as a 22-square kilometre area around the eruption is starting to sink. He says the Indonesian Government has recently decided to evacuate four more villages from the area.

    The ABC’s attempts to obtain a response from Lapindo Brantas were unsuccessful.

    By Anna Salleh for ABC Science Online

  • Lapindo praised despite mudflow

    Unbelievable. What were the government thinking? It really are hurt thousand of Lapindo victims feeling.

    The government has hailed gas exploration company PT Lapindo Brantas and several other mining giants for complying with environmental standards set by the government.

    The praise came despite Lapindo’s drilling activity in 2006 that allegedly caused a protracted mudflow in the East Java town of Sidoarjo. Three villages have been buried and thousands of families displaced by the mudflow.

    Lapindo joined a group of 180 companies that earned a blue rating in this year’s environmental audit results announced Thursday. Other companies included ConocoPhillips Indonesia Ltd., PT Medco EP, PT Pertamina, PT Lippo Cikarang and PT Kawasan Industri Makassar.

    Gold mining giant PT Freeport Indonesia, PT Aneka Tambang, PT International Nickel Indonesia and PT Indo Lampung Perkasa fared slightly worse, receiving the minus blue rating for “doing something for environmental management but not reaching the government’s standard”.

    The audits were conducted on 516 companies voluntarily taking part in the environmental performance rating program popularly known as Proper.

    The program rates companies gold, green, blue, blue minus, red, red minus or black according to their performance in controlling air and water pollution, following environmental impact analyses (Amdal) and implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.

    For the first time ever the government presented a gold rating, which went to Bandung-based geothermal firm Magna Nusantara, Ltd. The top award was given for the company’s massive energy saving efforts expected to cut up to 60,000 tons of carbon emissions.

    A total of 46 companies won trophies for achieving green status, exceeding environmental standards set by the government. They included PT Holcim Indonesia, PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper Mill, PT Toba Pulp Lestari, Tbk, PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara, PT Chandra Asri, PT Unilever Indonesia, PT Semen Gresik and PT Indah Kiat Pulp and Paper.

    State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said this year’s Proper reflected better environmental conditions with more companies committed to green operations.

    He expressed skepticism, however, that no major company had been given a black label.

    “I questioned the Proper auditing team about the validity of the ranking, as some big companies which have come under public scrutiny earned a better ranking,” Rachmat said.

    A black ranking was given to 43 companies, 13 of them for the second time in a row. The worst of the worst have no water or air treatment facilities and no Amdal documents.

    Rachmat said the government would sue the 13 companies for ignoring environmental regulations.

    Adianto P. Simamora (The Jakarta Post)

  • Scientists blame drilling for Indonesia mudflow

    Sigit Pamungkas/Reuters

    JAKARTA, Indonesia – International scientists say they are almost certain a mud volcano that displaced tens of thousands of villagers in central Indonesia was caused by faulty drilling of a gas exploration well — not an earthquake as claimed by the company.

    Debate over the eruption has flared since a seemingly endless torrent of hot, black sludge started oozing from a gaping hole near the country’s second-largest city of Surabaya on May 29, 2006.

    Well operator Lapindo Brantas, owned by the family of Indonesia’s richest man, Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie, says it was triggered by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that occurred 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the site two days earlier.

    “We are more certain than ever that the Lusi mud volcano is an unnatural disaster and was triggered by drilling the Banjar-Panji-1 well,” Richard Davies, a geologist at Durham University in Britain, said Tuesday.

    He was the lead author of a study published this week in the academic journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters that said his team was 99 percent sure that drilling pressures caused a fluid leakage that led to an “underground blowout.”

    Lapindo noticed too late that an influx of water or gas entered the well after the drill was removed for the night, Davies said, adding “it is quite clear” the critical pressure was “more than the hole could withstand.”

    Michael Manga, a University of California researcher who authored the part of the report on the quake’s impact, said while earthquakes can trigger eruptions, this one “was simply too small and too far away.”

    Ready for a scientific debate

    Lapindo responded by saying Davies and his team were not experts on drilling, rock mechanics or mud volcanoes.

    “We are ready for a scientific debate,” said company spokeswoman Yuniwati Teryana, adding that some other international experts support claims the eruption was triggered by tectonic activities.

    The government has made many attempts to contain or stop the mud, which is coming out at a rate of up to 3.5 million cubic feet (100,000 cubic meters) a day, including dropping beach ball-sized concrete balls into its mouth and building dams to channel the sludge to sea.

    But it continues to wreak havoc, swallowing at least a dozen villages and displacing up to 30,000 people. The government estimates the eruption will cause US$844 million in damage and has ordered Lapindo to pay half that, with some of the money going toward compensating victims.

    © The Associated Press

  • Drilling likely cause of volcano

    The Indonesian mud volcano disaster which has displaced about 40,000 people was most likely caused by oil and gas drilling, not an earthquake, Australian researcher and academic Mark Tingay says.

    In the August edition of Geology, Dr Tingay, who produced the research while at Adelaide University, writes that while mud volcanoes have been linked to earthquakes in the past, the earthquake some have blamed for this incident was too small and too far away to be responsible.

    Santos is an 18 per cent shareholder in the drilling program, operated by Indonesian company Lapindo Brantas, which has been blamed for the mud eruption, which has been spewing mud since May 29, 2006.

    Lapindo Brantas is part of a conglomerate owned by one of Indonesia’s richest families, of which People’s Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie is a member.

    Dr Tingay told the Australian Earth Sciences Convention in Perth the mud eruption was averaging about 100,000 cubic metres of mud a day, and had displaced 40,000 people and was threatening another 60,000.

    The amount of mud produced so far was enough to fill the Perth central business district to a height of 20m, or seven storeys.

    A recent report in the Jakarta Post claims a government investigation had not yet reached a decision whether the disaster had natural or human-induced causes.

    A decision in the South Jakarta District Court late last year, which is being appealed, cited natural causes as the most likely cause of the incident.

    Dr Tingay and his fellow researchers believe the human-induced hypothesis is most likely.

    “Despite the close temporal relation between the Yogyakarta earthquake and the . . . mud eruption, all of the known processes for remote triggering of fault reactivation and associated mud volcanism are implausible,” he writes in Geology.

    “Analysis of the static and dynamic stress changes resulting from this Yogyakarta earthquake suggests that this earthquake was at least an order of magnitude too small to have triggered the . . . mud eruption.

    “We suggest that no viable mechanism is yet known by which the Yogyakarta earthquake could have triggered the mud flow and that a drilling accident in the Banjar Panji-1 well, combined with unsafe drilling practices, was the most likely triggering mechanism.”

    A recent investor presentation stated that Santos has made a $US79 million ($82.4 million) provision on its books for the disaster.

    Santos spokesman Matthew Doman said the company did not comment on the cause of the incident.

    CAMERON ENGLAND (AdelaideNow)

  • Lapindo Nominated for 2008 Housing Rights Violator Award

    The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) will send an international committee to hold investigations into the Lapindo corporation and its responsibility for the Sidoarjo mud-flow disaster following its nomination for the 2008 Housing Rights Violator Awards.

    Lapindo and its controlling entity Bakrie Groups have been nominated for causing the destruction of 11 villages and over 13,000 houses in Sidoarjo, destroying the homes of 50,000 people. Lapindo has been charged with a breach of Article 11 (1) of the ICESCR (International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) which provides for the right adequate standard of living including the right to housing.

    The investigation into Lapindo is set to commence next month and the winner of the award will be announced later this year.  COHRE takes into account the following criteria in deciding recipients for the annual Housing Rights Violator Awards:

    • A marked deterioration in the housing rights situation directly attributable to actions or omissions for which the nominee is responsible
    • A clear failure to implement national or international housing rights obligations
    • A clear failure of the nominee to devote the maximum of available resources towards the full realization of housing rights
    • A marked increase in the prevalence of housing rights violations, whether in terms of specific events or larger patterns of increasing neglect of housing rights obligations
    • The effect of specific housing rights violations
    • The degree of impunity with which housing rights violations have been committed
    • The likelihood that the award will make a positive contribution to the enjoyment of housing rights in the country concerned
    • The reliability and accuracy of available information

    For more information on the awards see COHRE Housing Rights Awards Webpage.

  • Kejagung Tak Bisa Baca Black Box Lapindo

    JAKARTA – Kejaksaan agung telah mengirimkan jaksa ke Polda Jawa Timur untuk melihat isi black box Lapindo yang diduga bisa digunakan sebagai petunjuk penyebab kegagalan proses pengeboran di Sidoarjo.

    Sayangnya, isi black box pengeboran tidak sama dengan black box pesawat. Sehingga diperlukan tenaga ahli untuk memahaminya.

    “Isi black box berupa data dalam bentuk grafis seperti catatan denyut nadi yang dikeluarkan alat deteksi jantung di rumah sakit. Ya, siapa yang bisa baca,” ujar Jaksa Agung Muda Pidana Umum Kejagung Abdul Hakim Ritongga di Jakarta, Jumat (1/8/2008).

    Karena itu, dia menyarankan agar polisi menyewa ahli pengeboran untuk menerjemahkan data tersebut. “Jaksa kan hanya memberikan petunjuk ke polisi,” ujarnya.

    Dalam hal ini, kejaksaan akan menunggu terlebih dahulu hasil pembacaan black box sebelum memutuskan, apakah data dalam alat ini bisa digunakan untuk memberi petunjuk penyebab utama lumpur Lapindo atau tidak. “Kita baca dulu dan lihat hasilnya seperti apa,” ujarnya.

    Yuni Herlina Sinambela (Okezone)

  • Indonesian mud volcano ’caused by gas drilling’

    A mud volcano that is erupting in Indonesia was most probably caused by drilling for gas, according to the first published scientific study. The event forced the evacuation of many villages, and will leave 11,000 people permanently displaced.

    The study concludes that the eruption appears to have been triggered by drilling of over-pressured porous and permeable limestones. The study is published in the magazine of the Geological Society of America, GSA Today.

    The volcano is disgorging between 7000 and 150,000 cubic metres (245,000 and 5.25 million cubic feet, respectively) of mud every day and the flow “will continue for many months and possibly years to come”, the report warns.

    In the coming months, subsidence will occur over an area several kilometres wide and there is likely to be “more dramatic collapse” around the main vent, forming a crater.

    An area of at least 10 square kilometres (3.9 square miles) around the volcano will be uninhabitable for years, say the researchers, led by Richard Davies, at the University of Durham, UK. The British experts analysed satellite images of the area to make their study.

    Steaming mud

    The volcano, known locally as Lusi, has been spewing steaming mud since 29 May 2006, submerging four villages, fields and factories. It erupted from a gas well near Surabaya, East Java, that was operated by Lapindo Brantas Inc.

    The scientists say that seepage of mud and water are usually a preventable hazard when exploring for oil and gas. “It is standard industry procedure that this kind of drilling requires the use of steel casing to support the borehole, and protect against the pressure of fluids such as water, oil or gas,” says Davies.

    “In the case of Lusi, a limestone water aquifer was drilled into while the lower part of the borehole was not protected by casing,” he says. The aquifers are about 3 km (1.9 miles) below the surface.

    The report adds: “The borehole provided a pressure connection between the aquifers in the limestones and overpressured mud in overlying units. As this was not protected by steel casing, the pressure induced hydraulic fracturing, and fractures propagated to the surface, where pore fluid and some entrained sediment started to erupt.”

    No quake link

    Davies said the case in Indonesia was similar to a blowout that happened off the shore of Brunei in 1979: “Just as is most probably the case with Lusi, the Brunei event was caused by drilling and it took an international oil company almost 30 years and 20 relief wells before the eruption stopped.”

    Last week, Indonesia’s minister for social welfare, Aburizal Bakrie, whose family firm controls Lapindo Brantas, said the volcano was a “natural disaster” unrelated to the drilling activities.

    “It is not because of the Lapindo drill but it is because of the quake,” he said, referring to an earthquake on 27 May 2006 near the ancient city of Yogyakarta that killed around 6000 people.

    But this scenario is ruled out by the study. It concludes that the quake was not to blame, mainly because two days elapsed before mud volcano erupted, and no other mud volcanoes occurred in the region after the quake.

    In December 2006, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered Lapindo to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah ($421 million) in compensation and costs related to the mud flow.

    (NewScientist)

  • Five ways to trigger a natural disaster

    Mud volcanoes

    On 28 May, steaming mud erupted from a gas well near Surabaya, East Java. Since then, each day between 7000 and 15,000 cubic metres of mud have poured out of what is now known as the Lusi Mud Volcano. Eleven villages have been displaced by the flow.

    Lapindo Brantas, which operates a nearby mine, claims that the original eruption was caused by a large earthquake with an epicentre near the ancient city of Yogyakarta some 250 km from the gas drilling site 40 hours earlier.

    But this has been discounted by several independent geological studies. “We suggest that a blowout in the Banjar Panji-1 well was the most likely mechanism for triggering the Lusi eruption,” write Mark Tingay of the University of Adelaide, Australia, and colleagues in the latest such study, published this month in the journal Geology.

    Earthquakes

    Lusi produced mud rather than molten lava, and geologists agree that humans cannot trigger real volcanoes. But we can certainly make the ground shake with great fury. Tremors in the crust beneath the North Sea have become more frequent since oil drilling operations began there, and mining operations are also known to increase the frequency of tremors.

    Both drilling and mining redistribute the normal stresses present in rocks, but they are not the biggest cause of man-made earthquakes. “Dams are the most dangerous man-made structure likely to cause quake,” says David Booth of the British Geological Survey.

    By artificially holding a large volume of water in one place, dams increase pressure on fractures beneath the surface of the earth. What’s more, water has a lubricating effect, making it easier for the fractures – or faults – to slip.

    Booth says the largest dam-induced earthquake occurred in Koyna, India on 11 December 1967. The region was previously considered nearly non-seismic but, shortly after a large dam was built and its reservoir filled, a magnitude 7.5 quake struck the area killing 200 people and injuring thousands more. Since then, the region has experienced frequent earthquakes.

    “People often ask whether nuclear testing can generate earthquakes,” says Booth. “The answer is no.” This is because, unlike dams, nuclear explosions produce instantaneous and short-lived geological stresses.

    As the wave of pressure moves through the rocks, the particles inside them shake but quickly go back to their original position.

    Disappearing lakes

    In addition to erupting and furiously shaking, the earth can be made to consume entire lakes.

    On 20 November 1980, Lake Peigneur in Louisiana was sucked into the ground in an enormous whirlpool. Although the exact cause of the incident is difficult to ascertain as the evidence was washed away, it is generally believed that the lake’s plug was pulled when a Texaco oil rig drilled into a salt mine directly beneath the lake.

    This caused water to pour into the mine, filling the shafts and dissolving the salt, as the oil rig and eleven barges were sucked down. The event is said to have looked like a giant bathtub emptying down a drain.

    Incredibly, no-one was hurt. But the lake’s ecosystem was permanently altered. Just days after the event, water flowed backwards from the Gulf of Mexico into Lake Peigneur, turning the freshwater lake into a brackish, saltwater one.

    Flooding

    Cloud-seeding is an increasingly common form of weather modification – but is it possible to push the method one step too far and bring on a biblical flood?

    On June 9, 1972, more than 35 centimetres of water – nearly a year’s worth of rain – fell in six hours over the Black Hills of Western South Dakota. The rainfall caused Rapid Creek to overflow and the Canyon Lake

    Dam to burst, resulting in huge floods in downstream Rapid City.

    More than 200 people died and 3000 were injured. About 1300 houses were destroyed, some simply lifted by the water and carried away. In all, the floods caused over $160 million in damage to the city.

    On the day of the storm, scientists had been carrying out cloud-seeding experiments nearby, and were later blamed for the floods.

    The principle of cloud seeding is relatively simple. The skies are peppered with a chemical – usually silver iodide – which draws the moisture out of clouds by providing something for water to condense on. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to establish how much rainfall is a direct result of cloud seeding.

    Don Griffith, of North American Weather Consultants, says it is highly unlikely that cloud seeding could trigger a flood on the scale of the one that devastated Rapid City in 1972.

    “In truth it was probably a bad idea for the scientists to be cloud seeding while a storm was building,” says Griffith. “But man’s ability to modify the weather in some small measure can in no way match power of nature.”

    Kerry Emanuel of Massachusetts Institute of Technology agrees that humans probably cannot influence such a large storm. “Cloud seeders often have the opposite problem: they don’t know whether they’ve had an effect at all,” he says.

    Hurricanes

    Worryingly, hurricanes can also be seeded. In the 1960s, US scientists involved in a project called Stormfury sought to demonstrate that they could disrupt the structure and energy of a hurricane by seeding the atmosphere.

    After two decades, some scientists suggested that Stormfury had failed to induce any change and the project was cancelled. But hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel says controlling the path of a hurricane is something that “we know how to do theoretically”.

    Emanuel explains that two-thirds of the hurricanes on course to make landfall in the US are knocked off course by another weather system. So scientists know what temperature and pressure disturbances in the atmosphere will help divert a raging hurricane. “The evolution of the atmosphere is very sensitive to small perturbations,” Emanuel adds.

    One way to create the necessary disturbances would be to release a trail of black carbon – tiny soot particles – into the sky. This should absorb enough of the Sun’s energy to create a temperature disturbance.

    But rerouting a hurricane would be an incredibly risky job that could result in international conflict and countless lawsuits. “If there is an 80% chance a storm is going to hit Miami, and if diverting it creates a 10% chance it will hit Bermuda – what do you do?” Emanuel wonders.

    Partly for these reasons, government agencies have so far steered clear of steering hurricanes. However, the prospect could become too appealing not to test.

    “For now, it is just an idea. But if we get a few more Katrinas and it becomes widely known that scientists have a technique to shift hurricane paths, it could become less taboo,” says Emanuel. “In my view it is inevitable that it will be tried, but that may not be in our lifetime.”

    Catherine Brahic (newscientist)

  • Polda Sudah Terjemahkan Box Drilling Lapindo

    “Box drilling? Mungkin yang dimaksudkan adalah daily report. Kalau daily report kita sudah terjemahkan ke translater di Jakarta dan sudah diperlihatkan disini,” kata Herman, Jumat (25/7/2008).

    Bahkan menurut Herman Polda, Jatim sudah melakukan perbaikan BAP kasus Lapindo dengan menggunakan bukti baru dari daily report tersebut dan sudah dipresentasikan di depan Kejati Jatim pekan lalu.

    “Kita sudah expose lagi ke Kejati mengenai kasus Lapindo dan mereka sudah mempelajari itu dan kemudian mereka akan diajukan ke Kejaksaan Agung,” kata Herman.

    Komnas HAM mendesak kepada Polda Jatim untuk menggunakan box drilling untuk memperkuat bukti BAP dalam kasus Lapindo. Box drilling ini fungsinya layaknya black box yang ada pesawat yaitu merekam semua aktivitas pengeboran. Dan saat ini menurut Komnas HAM box drilling tersebut ada di tangan Polda Jatim.

    Amir Tejo (okezone)

  • Walhi Desak Bapedal Teliti Kandungan Lumpur Lapindo

    Lumpur Lapindo mengandung PAH (policyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) yang melebihi ambang batas normal hingga 8 ribu kali lipatnya. Dengan kandungan tersebut potensi penyakit kanker dan tumor yang ditimbulkan cukup besar.

    Dari hasil temuan Walhi, kata Catur, lumpur Lapindo ternyata juga mengandung PAH (policyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) yang melebihi ambang batas normal hingga 8 ribu kali lipatnya. Padahal, dengan kandungan tersebut potensi penyakit kanker dan tumor yang ditimbulkan cukup besar.

    “Dengan kandungan wajar saja orang akan terkena tumor atau kanker. Jika terus terkontaminasi PAH sekitar 10 tahun, kalau PAH-nya sudah 8 ribu, bisa dibayangkan akibatnya,” tambah Catur.

    Karenanya, Walhi mendesak Bapedal segera melakukan kajian mendalam dan merekomendasikan kepada BPLS untuk segera melakukan terapi khusus bagi para warga yang berada di sekitar kawasan bencana. Selain itu, Walhi juga mendesak pemerintah segera mengosongkan kawasan tersebut.

    Desakan kepada Bapedal ini sebenarnya telah dilakukan Walhi sejak awal semburan lumpur. “Tapi saat itu, meski kami menyuguhkan temuan-temuan jika lumpur mengandung zat berbahaya serbupa logam dan hidrokarbon, tetap saja Bapedal tidak lakukan apapun,” kata Catur.

    Temuan Walhi tentang PAH sendiri memang baru dirilis beberapa waktu lalu. Meski demikian, temuan ini adalah sampel lumpur yang telah diambil mereka sejak November tahun 2006 lalu dan sejak saat ini langsung dilakukan penelitian di laboratorium milik Universitas Airlangga Surabaya.

    “Temuan kami bisa dipertanggungjawabkan secara keilmuan karena dilakukan secara serius di Lab Unair,” kata Catur.

    ROHMAN TAUFIQ (tempointeraktif)

  • Indonesia’s Ground Zero Expanding

    Tuesday, July 29, 2008 – A giant stinking lake of volcanic mud has made 50,000 people homeless and swallowed up villages and factories, writes David McNeill and  Andre Vltchek

    INDONESIANS CALL it Pompeii, or their own Ground Zero, a giant stinking lake of volcanic mud that has made 50,000 people homeless and relentlessly swallowed up villages, factories, schools, mosques and major transport arteries since it began
    bubbling out of the earth two years ago.

    The planet’s largest mud volcano spews 125,000 cubic metres of methane-rich sludge a day, enough to fill 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Today, the mud covers nearly 1,600 acres: about the size of Dublin’s Phoenix Park, and shows no sign of slowing, despite being dammed by hastily erected 6m (20ft) walls.

    Every week, hundreds of refugees from the Sidoarjo district of Java, about 18 miles from Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya, gather to pray for deliverance from what seems an almost biblical disaster.

    Shamans and witches have joined seismologists from across the world in a failed attempt to stem the flow of mud. “I don’t know how we’re going to survive,” frets Nur Kholifah, a housewife who lost her home in Kedong Bendo, the first inundated village. One of about 2,000 refugees living under sheets of plastic a few kilometers from the disaster area, she recalls May 29th, 2006: the day the eruption began.

    “I was preparing a meal and suddenly mud began inundating my house. It was hot and smelly.” She blames the volcano for the death of her mother a month ago. “She used to be healthy: I think she died from stress.”

    At Besuki village, bordering the mud lake local people made homeless by the eruption stop passing cars to beg for money.

    Officially declared a natural disaster, seismologists and furious locals blame drilling by an oil and gas exploration company with connections to a billionaire government minister. The company, Lapindo Brantas, was drilling for oil 3,000 metres into the ground less than half a kilometre from crowded villages when the volcano erupted.

    A team of experts from the UK’s Durham University who investigated the site concluded that the drilling penetrated a water-filled aquifer beneath a sea of mud, sending a pressurised mix of both to the surface.

    The team’s leader Prof Richard Davies said he was “99 percent certain” that the drilling triggered the eruption. Private compensation claims are crawling through the Indonesian courts, but few of the poor victims can afford the legal fees.

    Lapindo Brantas is owned by the family of welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie, listed last year as Indonesia’s richest man by Forbes magazine with a total fortune of about $9 billion. The minister and his family’s company have grown rich on the back of rising global commodity and energy prices, particularly for coal. Critics say the minister’s political connections have saved him from stronger government demands for compensation.

    PT Bumi Resources, Indonesia’s largest mining company, owned by the Bakrie family, has seen its share price increase 400 per cent over the past year as global demand for coal has surged, according to GlobeAsia magazine.

    But Yuniwati Teryana, a spokesman for Lapindo, claims the mud flow is a “natural” phenomenon. “Technical and legal facts have not shown that Lapindo is guilty,” he said.

    Lapindo has refused compensation but offered what it calls “aid” to the victims, including food, rent and down-payments on houses. Many refugees have refused and demand new homes.

    Nur Kholifah is one of hundreds who received about $1,500, about 20 per cent of what the company promised, she says. She immediately handed over a quarter to a legal team battling for compensation.

    In Besuki, families live in makeshift housing and green military tents. Some have given up hope for compensation. Those who haven’t shun publicity for fear of retribution. “I’m afraid to say anything,” said a woman who gave only her family name, Amru. She says rain and floods have made the situation worse. “We had several floods. My baby was born after the second flood. We mark out time by floods.”

    On the outskirts of Reno Kenongo village, now completely uninhabitable, children play in the mud, which they say smells like rotten eggs. Some locals are taking their former homes apart, brick by brick, and selling the bricks at about $14 per 1,000.

    “What can we do?” asks a villager called Mrs Lika “We have to survive somehow.”

    Ms Ngateni laments: “There are no jobs and we are still waiting in vain for some aid or assistance. And now we are turned into beggars. We stop the cars and we beg: that’s how we have ended up.” She is refusing to leave the area, despite the miserable conditions. “If I leave it could be used as a reason not to pay me any compensation.”

    The only motorway passing through Surabaya disappears beneath the mud, causing epic traffic jams. The main railroad line also had to be rerouted.

    At night, moonlight illuminates the eerie landscape around the area: a dark heavy liquid choking the skeletons of houses and the dead trunks of trees.

    Soldiers and government experts dispatched by Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono have failed to staunch the flow of mud. Engineers have tried to plug the volcano with concrete and giant rocks, then to cart the mud away in trucks before being overwhelmed by the sheer volume. Everyone lives in fear that one day the concrete dam holding back the mud will burst, and this entire area will disappear from the face of the earth. “There are no precedents for what we are attempting to do here,” one engineer told the German Der Spiegel magazine.

    As the battle against the mud and Lapindo continues, the worst fears of those made homeless are coming true: complacency is setting in. “It used to be the only topic people were interested in discussing”, explains Dwiki Basuki, a lecturer at the local Surabaya Institute of Technology.

    “But eventually people got bored. Nothing happened; almost no compensation was paid to the victims. The mud lake there is growing, but people have got used to it.”

    In the latest maps for Surabaya, the area has even started to appear as a tourist trail. “Hot Mud Lake” is now listed alongside temples and other local sites of interest. The tourists and the curious are hounded by beggars who didn’t exist two years ago.

    © 2008 The Irish Times

  • “Cash and Carry” atau Mati!

    “Cash and Carry” atau Mati!

    Jatirejo, korbanlumpur.info – Pada saat media ramai memberitakan tentang betapa warga korban lumpur yang di dalam peta sudah menerima kunci rumah di perumahan Kahuripan Nirwana Villages, ribuan orang lainnya masih terkatung-katung nasibnya. Mereka adalah kelompok yang menolak tawaran cash and resettlement dari Minarak Lapindo Jaya (MLJ). Warga tetap bersikeras untuk menuntut pembayaran cash and carry. “Cash and Carry atau Mati!” Demikian semboyan Bang Rois, tokoh warga dari Siring, Porong.

    Semangat itu mengemuka dalam pertemuan korban lumpur Lapindo dari kelompok yang menamakan GEPPRES (Gerakan Penegakan Perpres 14/2007). Pertemuan yang digelar di Posko GEPPRESS di Desa Jatirejo tadi malam (25/07) itu dihadiri oleh ratusan warga dari empat desa, yaitu Siring, Jatirejo, Reno Kenongo dan Kedung Bendo.  Rapat itu bertujuan untuk mensosialisasikan rencana kerja dan tuntutan GEPPRES kepada anggotanya.

    GEPPRES merupakan kelompok pecahan dari kelompok Gabungan Korban Lumpur Lapindo (GKLL) yang lebih dikenal sebagai kelompok binaan Cak Nun. Pada tanggal 24 Juni 2008, GKLL yang awalnya menuntut cash and carry menandatangani nota kesepahaman dengan MLJ untuk menerima cash  and resettlement, disaksikan oleh Bupati, Kepala BPLS dan Cak Nun selaku pembina GKLL. Karena nota kesepahaman itulah kemudian banyak warga yang kecewa yang kemudian membentuk GEPPRES “Sebab kami sudah dikhianati oleh GKLL dan Cak Nun,” tegas Musthofa, ketua GEPPRES.

    Menurut Musthofa, awalnya GKLL menuntut untuk pembayaran sisa 80% secara cash and carry. “Bahkan warga semuanya disuruh untuk membuat surat pernyataan dan mandat kepada Cak Nun untuk memperjuangkan”, tambah Musthofa. Sebagian besar warga beranggapan bahwa pembayaran 20% yang sudah mereka terima adalah atas jasa Cak Nun. Saat itu, lanjut Musthofa, ada 3.000-an warga yang tergabung dalam GKLL, “karena kami memang ingin sisa pembayaran 80% dibayar secara cash and carry.”

    Alasan warga menuntut cash and carry adalah karena warga tidak akan bisa hidup di perumahan seperti yang ditawarkan Lapindo. “Sebagian besar warga itu petani dan tukang bangunan. Lha bagaimana kami bisa hidup di perumahan? Kami sudah biasa hidup di desa yang orangnya kenal semua. Jelas kami tidak akan kerasan dan tidak akan bisa kerja,” jelas Wito, salah seorang pengurus GEPPRES dari Jatirejo, dengan panjang lebar.

    Lain lagi yang diutarakan Hari Suwandi, koordinator Desa Kedungbendo dalam kepengurusan GEPPRES. Menurut Hari, orang sudah terlanjur berencana untuk membangun rumah atau melakukan berbagai hal lainnya dengan uang 80% yang mestinya mereka terima akhir bulan ini. “Sebagian sudah beli tanah, mbangunnya dengan uang dari Minarak. Ada yang sudah kadung bayar uang muka untuk beli rumah di desa lain. Lha kalau gak jadi seperti ini ya gimana?” terangnya.

    Yang lebih rumit, sebagian besar orang mengaku berhutang dan berjanji untuk melunasi setelah menerima pembayaran 80%. Tetapi karena Minarak menolak membayar secara tunai, tentunya mereka terancam untuk gagal. “Ada itu bahkan yang sudah membayar uang muka untuk naik haji sampai 15 juta. Lha kalau tidak bisa melunasi ini kan bisa hangus” tambah Hari. Karena itu warga menolak skema cash and resettlement dan tetap menginginkan untuk pembayaran cash and carry.

    Dalam pertemuan GEPPRES yang kedua tadi malam, warga membulatkan tekad untuk tetap menuntut hak mereka. Secara hukum, warga yakin bahwa posisi mereka sudah sangat kuat. “Kita ini kan sudah dilindungi dengan Perpres 14/2007 yang mewajibkan Lapindo untuk membayar 20-80 kepada korban. Lha kenapa Peraturan dari Presiden bisa dikalahkan oleh nota kesepahaman GKLL dengan MLJ. Yang memimpin negara ini memangnya siapa?” tegas Musthofa yang disambut tepuk semangat peserta pertemuan yang membludak sampai ke sisi jalan raya.

    Pendapat itu dibenarkan oleh Paring Waluyo, pendamping warga dari Posko Porong. Menurut Paring, hak warga untuk mendapatkan sisa pembayaran sebanyak 80 persen secara cash and carry itu dilindungi paling tidak oleh 4 peraturan hukum. Yang pertama adalah Perpres 14/2007 itu sendiri. Pada pasal 15 dari Perpres menegaskan bahwa Lapindo wajib membeli tanah dan bangunan warga dengan skema 20-80, dimana sisa pembayaran dilakukan satu bulan sebelum masa kontrak habis.

    Yang kedua adalah Putusan Mahkamah Agung RI Nomor 24 P/HUM/2007 tanggal 14 Desember 2007 yang merupakan jawaban atas permintaan Uji Materiil Perpres 14/2007. “Putusan MA yang merupakan lembaga tertinggi dalam masalah hukum ini pada dasarnya menegaskan tentang cara pembayaran yang diatur dalam Perpres, dan menegaskan kewajiban bagi Lapindo untuk menjalankan Perpres bagi warga yang memilih skema ini,” tambah Paring.

    Yang ketiga adalah Surat Badan Pertanahan Nasional (BPN) c.q. Deputi Bidang Hak Atas Tanah dan Pendaftaran Tanah kepada Kepala Kantor Pertanahan Kabupaten Sidoarjo tertanggal 24 Maret 2008 tentang Petunjuk Pelaksanaan Penyelesaian Masalah Lumpur Sidoarjo. “Dalam surat ini disebutkan bahwa tanah Letter C, Pethok D dan SK Gogol, bisa di-akta jual beli-kan. Nah, kalau Minarak bilang bahwa tanah non-sertifikat tidak bisa di AJB-kan, itu kesimpulan sepihak,” terangnya disambut tepuk tangan setuju dari peserta pertemuan.

    Sedangkan yang terakhir adalah risalah rapat tanggal 2 Mei yang ditandatangani Minarak dan Perwakilan warga yang juga disaksikan oleh pejabat terkait (Mensos, Bupati, Kepala BPLS, BPN, dsb) . Pada pertemuan itu juga disepakati bahwa tanah non sertifikat bisa di-AJB-kan. “Karena itu, sebenarnya tidak ada alasan bagi Minarak untuk tidak memenuhi tuntutan warga yang ingin memilih cash and carry,” pungkas Paring.

    Karena itu, GEPPRES menyatakan dengan tekad bulat bahwa mereka tetap akan memperjuangkan untuk menuntut cash and carry atas sisa pembayaran 80%. Setelah 2 tahun menunggu, warga mengaku bahwa mereka tidak mau lagi dibohongi dan dibodohi. “Lha sebentar lagi kontrak rumah sudah habis, kita tidak punya pilihan lain selain hanya menuntut kepada pemerintah. Kami akan bawa ini sampai ke RI-1 yang keputusannya ternyata diselewengkan di bawah oleh aparatnya,” tukas Musthofa, ketua GEPPRES.

    Warga sendiri mengaku tidak akan mundur untuk menuntut hak yang selama ini sudah diambil oleh Lapindo. “Warga korban lumpur jangan takut, saya yang akan didepan. Kalau aparat mau menangkap, tangkap saja saya. Silahkan, wong saya memperjuangkan rakyat kecil, tetangga saya yang tukang-tukang becak itu. Jangan takut. Pokoknya cash and carry atau mati,” tegas Bang Rois, tokoh dari Siring yang disambut dengan tepukan setuju dari warga korban lumpur Lapindo lainnya.