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  • Warga Blokade Tanggul dengan Spanduk

    Warga Blokade Tanggul dengan Spanduk

    korbanlumpur.info, Porong – Hari ini, Sabtu 9 Agustus 2008, warga desa korban lumpur Lapindo dari desa Siring, Jatirejo, Kedung Bendo, dan Renokenongo melakukan aksi pemasangan spanduk penolakan proyek penanggulan. Aksi dipimpin langsung oleh masing masing koordinator lapangan di tiap desa.

    Warga Siring dan Jatirejo melakukan pemasangan spanduk di pintu masuk dumtruck di pintu masuk bekas kantor Koramil. Aksi dipimpin langsung korlap Siring, Rois Hariyanto, dan korlap Jatirejo, Suwito. Sedangkan warga Kedung Bendo melakukan pengusiran eskavator yang mengerjakan penanggulan di Jalan Demak, Desa Ketapang.

    Aksi dipimpin langsung oleh korlap Kedung Bendo, Usman dan Hari Suwandi. Aksi warga Kedung Bendo ini mendapat dukungan langsung dari Kepala Desa kedung Bendo, H Hasan. Sementara aksi pemasangan spanduk di Desa Renokenongo dipimpin langsung oleh korlap Renokenongo, Mahmudatul Fatchiya. Aksi pemasangan spanduk warga Renokenongo ini dilakukan di sepanjang tanggul Desa Renokenongo.

    Aksi pemasangan dan blokade sesaat ini dilakukan untuk memperingatkan BPLS agar segera memaksa PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya untuk membayar pelunasan aset mereka. Sebab selama ini mereka hanya dibayar dengan uang muka 20 persen oleh PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya. Kini telah jatuh tempo pembayaran sisa 80 persennya. Tapi belakangan, Andi Darussalam Tabusala, Vice President Minarak Lapindo Jaya menyatakan tidak akan membayar sisa uang 80 persen yang seharusnya diterima warga, jika bukti kepemilikan tanah warga hanya Letter C dan Pethok D, atau SK Gogol. PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya hanya bersedia membayar tanah warga yang bersertifikat hak milik.

    Menurut Suwito, pihaknya memberi batas waktu paling lama seminggu kepada PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya dan BPLS untuk merealisasikan sisa pembayaran secara tunai (cash) sisa uang 80 persen. “Jika tanah kami tidak dibayar, maka kami akan melakukan aksi massa yang lebih besar. Akan tetapi aksi massa tersebut akan kami lakukan secara damai, dan tidak mengganggu masyarakat umum,” ujar Suwito, Koordinator Gerakan Pendukung Peraturan Presiden (Geppres).

    Beragam spanduk kini telah menancap di beberapa titik tanggul lumpur Lapindo dari empat desa. “Bayar dulu, baru tanggul”, “Lapindo perampas tanah rakyat”, “Letter C, Pethok D bisa di-AJB-kan”, begitulah ungkapan tuntutan warga  yang mereka tuangkan dalam beberapa spanduk.

    Warga berkomitmen, spanduk-spanduk itu akan mereka jaga secara bergiliran. Mereka akan mempertahankan spanduk spanduk itu jika ada pihak pihak lain yang berupaya menurunkannya. (ring)

  • Confronting evidence questions cause of mud eruption disaster

    Devastation from a mud erupting volcano on the Indonesian island of Java is not caused by an earthquake as previously thought, claims a Curtin University of Technology geologist in a paper published in the current issue of Geology.

    The Lusi mud volcano has erupted unabated for over two years, flooding 11 villages and displacing over 40,000 people in East Java.   Curtin researcher Mark Tingay, whilst working for the University of Adelaide, uncovered evidence of unsafe drilling practices prior to the eruption.  As a result he questions the theory that the 2006 earthquake which triggered the flow is the direct cause of this large scale disaster.

    In his paper titled “Triggering of the Lusi mud eruption: Earthquake versus drilling initiation” Post Doctoral Fellow and lead author, Tingay explains the magnitude of the disaster and addresses the questions it provokes.

    “The May 2006 mud flow from the Lusi volcano caused unprecedented damage by flooding an area of seven square kilometres to depths of 20 metres over a two year period.  Although some scientists and the Indonesian government believe the mud flow was triggered by the Yogyakarta earthquake that occurred 250 km away and two days before the eruption, this earthquake is calculated to be too small in magnitude to have caused such devastation,” Dr Tingay said.

    “Earthquakes have triggered events like this before, however the Yogyakarta earthquake was at least ten times too small to have triggered such a disaster, whilst the well that was drilled only 200 metres away from the volcano is the more likely cause.”

    Tingay claims that the skipping of two planned casing points during drilling of the Banjar Panji-1 (BJP-1) gas well meant that the borehole was not properly reinforced and thus vulnerable to a drilling accident known as a ‘kick’.

    “The BJP-1 gas exploration well, located 200 metres from the eruption suffered several drilling problems, including a large ‘kick’, during which we calculate pressures in the well were sufficient to fracture the rocks and create fluid flow pathways to the surface,” Dr Tingay said.

    “The hazardously narrow drilling window in the BJP-1 well, together with the significant deviation from planned protective casing design, are widely regarded as unsafe drilling practices. Indeed, it is possible that this disaster could have been avoided had protective casing been set as planned.”

    Tingay and his co-authors provide a quantitative discussion of the long-running debate on whether the mud eruption was triggered by natural or anthropological events, with the owner of the BJP-1 well potentially facing damage costs estimated to be in the vicinity of US$420 million dollars if found to be negligent.

    “Seventeen people have died as a result of the eruption and around 40,000 are now permanently displaced as mud rises at rates of 100,000 cubic metres a day.  That’s the equivalent of over 50 Olympic swimming pools a day,” Dr Tingay said.

    The Lusi mud flow could continue flowing for over 10 years with the strong possibility that further problems will arise as a result of the area around the disaster area rapidly sinking.

    The study was conducted in collaboration with Dr Oliver Heidbach of Karlsruhe University, Germany, Professor Richard Davies of Durham University, UK and Dr Richard Swarbrick of GeoPressure Technology, UK.

    Tingay’s paper can be viewed on the Geological Society of America site: http://www.gsajournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-toc&issn=0091-7613&volume=36&issue=8

    Contact:  Mark Tingay, Department of Applied Geology, Curtin, 08 9266 7097, [email protected]

  • Kemerdekaan Pers dan Lumpur Lapindo

    Bukan rahasia lagi jika dalam kasus semburan lumpur Lapindo itu muncul fenomena yang sebenarnya tidak baru, yaitu ‘jual-beli’ informasi. Jika dalam dunia hukum ada fenomena mafia peradilan yang melibatkan polisi, jaksa, hakim serta advokat (pengacara) selaku makelar kodok, tampaknya dalam dunia jurnalistik juga ada mafia jurnalistik. Ada kawan wartawan yang bisa menjelaskan konspirasi antara pihak Lapindo Brantas Inc. dengan para jurnalis. Ia memetakan kelompok konspirasi itu ada tiga, yaitu: konspirasi dengan jurnalis secara pribadi, konspirasi dengan perusahaan media dan konspirasi dengan redaksi media. Wallahu’alam.

    Sudah berbulan-bulan ini tampaknya media (pers) seolah enggan memberitakan keadaan riil para korban lumpur Lapindo. Yang lebih banyak menjadi bahan berita adalah perundingan antara para pengurus Gabungan Korban Lumpur Lapindo (GKLL) dengan PT. Minarak Lapindo Jaya (MLJ). Pers juga sudah enggan mengulas tentang peran pemerintah ketika MLJ tapi kini berbalik arah ‘membangkang’ Perpres No. 14 Tahun 2007 dengan kemunculan skema penyelesaian sosial cash and resettlement, yang dengan sendirinya melanggar klausul cash and carry perjanjian ikatan jual-beli (PIJB) antara MLJ dengan korban lumpur Lapindo.

    Tetapi justru yang sering muncul di beberapa media adalah berita advertorial atau advertorial terselubung dengan judul yang sama, yaitu: “Sidoarjo Bangkit.” Dalam advertorial – baik yang terang-terangan maupun terselubung – itu isinya sama: mengulas bahwa seolah-olah skema relokasi ke Kahuripan Nirwana Village (KNV) adalah ‘masa depan’ yang baik. Pers tidak memuat informasi yang benar tentang keluhan para korban lumpur Lapindo sendiri, baik yang ‘terpaksa’ menerima skema cash and resettlement maupun yang menolak. Pers hanya mengutip komentar para petinggi MLJ, menteri, aparat dan pengurus GKLL, memuji model cash and resettlement sebagai cara terbaik. Pers tidak menampilkan kritikan atas ‘pembangkangan’ Lapindo dan MLJ tersebut.

    Idealisme pers

    Hal menyedihkan semacam itu tidak saja terjadi dalam kasus lumpur Lapindo. Dalam perpolitikan misalnya juga terjadi di mana dengan dalih profesionalisme pers ada para jurnalis jebolan dari berbagai perusahaan media yang bergabung membuat media baru yang khusus menjadi corong salah satu calon gubernur. Mereka berdalih bahwa yang mereka jual adalah jasa profesi sebagai jurnalis.

    Menurut UU No. 40 Tahun 1999, pers adalah lembaga sosial dan wahana komunikasi massa yang melaksanakan kegiatan jurnalistik (pasal 1 angka 1). Dalam penjelasan pasal 3 ayat (2) dijelaskan: Perusahaan pers dikelola sesuai dengan prinsip ekonomi, agar kualitas pers dan kesejahteraan para wartawan dan karyawannya semakin meningkat dengan tidak meninggalkan kewajiban sosialnya. Lantas bagaimana cara melaksanakan prinsip ekonomi dengan kewajiban sosialnya?

    Saya coba korelasikan hal itu dengan kewajaran atau kepatutan yang menjadi asas hukum. Apakah wajar dan patut misalnya perusahaan pers menerima iklan yang sifatnya subyektif dari pihak Lapindo untuk menjalankan prinsip ekonomi korporasi pers, padahal Lapindo sedang berkonflik dengan masyarakat? Pers bisa menjadi kikuk dalam memberitakan kondisi riil masyarakat korban secara utuh. Atau, menurut beberapa kawan jurnalis, ada perusahaan pers yang ‘menghantam’ Lapindo dengan berita yang khusus meliput derita korban lumpur Lapindo, yang tujuannya untuk memperoleh harga iklan yang tinggi?

    Baik pers, aktivis LSM atau NGO, seharusnya tidak menjadi omnivora yang ‘memakan segala’ tanpa memasang ukuran idealisme. Ada contoh, sebuah lembaga bantuan hukum yang menetapkan etika tak tertulis, di mana advokat yang bergabung di dalamnya dilarang membela pengusaha melawan buruh, pemerintah melawan warga, tuan tanah melawan petani, korporasi melawan masyarakat, tidak boleh membela tersangka/terdakwa kasus korupsi. Hal itu untuk menghindari konflik kepentingan, sebab misi lembaga hukum diprioritaskan membantu kaum lemah. Sedangkan kaum kuat ekonomi lebih leluasa untuk menyewa advokat komersiil.

    Arah bisnis media, dalam persaingan yang semakin ketat, tampaknya mulai menanggalkan baju idealisme. Pers mengarah pada korporasisasi, di mana pelaksanaan kewajiban sosialnya berubah menjadi semacam praktik corporate social responsibility (CSR) yang dilakukan korporasi pada umumnya.

    Berita yang disajikan dalam beberapa hal menjadi alat tawar-menawar, meski dalam beberapa hal masih ada yang dimaksudkan untuk kontrol sosial. Tetapi dengan masuknya pebisnis bermasalah ke ruang ekonomi pers, maka kontrol sosialnya menjadi disparatif. Pers akan cenderung melunak dengan para pemasang iklan yang berkonflik dengan masyarakat, tapi bisa lebih garang kepada ‘penguasa’ yang tidak memasang iklan. Itu jelas tidak adil.

    Kemerdekaan pers

    Dalam era demokrasi yang semakin menguat, kemerdekaan pers tak lagi diancam oleh penguasa represif, tapi oleh kekuatan ekonomi hitam. Ketika ada hakim yang memukulkan palu hukuman kepada pers atas gugatan korporasi atau suatu pihak dengan tuduhan pencemaran nama baik, bisa jadi itu disebabkan pengaruh uang korporasi itu (baca: suap) kepada penegak hukum, bukan karena tekanan kekuasaan politik.

    Tangan-tangan kekuasaan ekonomi itulah yang mengancam memasung kemerdekaan pers, sebab dengan iming-iming uang maka ada para jurnalis yang mengorbankan idealisme dan independensinnya. Kinerja pers dalam memberitakan kasus lumpur Lapindo hanya merupakan salah satu contoh isu ketidakmerdekaan pers yang merebak luas. Isu itu bukan semata dugaan eksternal pers, tapi juga atas ‘kesaksian’ para jurnalis yang masih bisa mempertahankan idealisme mereka.

    Masyarakat mempunyai hak untuk disuguhi informasi yang adil dan obyektif. Memang sulit mengukur keadilan dan obyektivitas itu, meski hal itu bisa saja dibawa ke ranah hukum. Tetapi hukum yang masih terjangkit virus korupsi juga belum dapat menjamin terwujudnya keadilan. Namun dengan semakin menguatnya ‘rasan-rasan’ di masyarakat tentang ‘permainan pers’ dalam kasus lumpur Lapindo itu, maka Dewan Pers seharusnya mengambil inisitif untuk melakukan ‘pengintaian’ untuk mencari bukti-bukti tentang siapa saja jurnalis maupun perusahaan pers yang telah bermain.

    Kita tengah membangun martabat bangsa ini. Ketika kita mulai ramai membangun hukum agar lebih beradab, jangan sampai dunia pers kita terlupakan dan menjelma menjadi ‘perusahaan informasi’ yang tak lagi mengenal misi sosial dalam rangka melaksanakan kedaulatan rakyat yang berasaskan prinsip-prinsip demokrasi, keadilan, dan supremasi hukum (lihat pasal 2 UU No. 40 Tahun 1999). Misi sosial itu bukanlah dengan menyumbang beras dan uang, tapi melakukan kontrol sosial yang fair.

    SUBAGYO, S.H.

  • Volcano Reveals a Murky Indonesia

    Volcano Reveals a Murky Indonesia

    THE TOWN of Porong lies 30 kilometers south of Surabaya, the coastal capital of East Java province in Indonesia. On the map, the town and the surrounding district of Sidoarjo is moored in a swath of rural green, part of the rice-growing countryside that nurtures Java, the most world’s most populous island. seen up-close, though, the Porong’s hinterland is semi-industrial farmland-a patchwork of backyard factories, rice paddies, shrimp farms and modern industrial buildings linked by toll-road to Surabaya.

    Since May 2006, the map has been redrawn in spectacular fashion. A volcanic outpouring of toxic mud has swallowed up 11 towns, engulfing homes, factories, schools and farms, and uprooting around 16,000 people. The mud covers 6.5 sq. kilometers, hemmed by a network of dams and levees. A 3 kilometer stretch of toll-road lies abandoned after a concrete bridge began to crack from subsidence. Trucks must crawl through Porong on a clogged two-lane street. And still the hot, stinking mud keeps gushing.

    The disaster began with a wildcat well drilled by Lapindo Brantas, an energy company part-owned by Aburizal Bakrie, a prominent Indonesian tycoon and politician. The drilling opened a fissure in the ground from where the mud has flowed ever since. Efforts to staunch the flow have all failed, so engineers are pumping mud into the Porong River and out to sea, while shoring up the earthen dams. An eventual fix could be years away. In June 2007, Japan offered to build a 130-foot high dam around the volcano, on the theory that the dried, hardened mud would eventually cut off the flow.

    Lying on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia is no stranger to natural disasters. Seizing on this seismic record, Lapindo executives sought to blame the Sidoarjo mudflow on an earthquake that hit Central Java three days earlier. Most geologists, however, reject this theory. Critics say it is part of a strategy by Lapindo to evade taking full responsibility for an expensive clean-up. So far, it seems to be working. Police in East Java have compiled a case against the company for criminal negligence, but prosecutors refuse to proceed, saying the evidence is inconclusive.

    Yet for all its natural calamities-earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides-Indonesia’s real curse may lie in its boardrooms. A government tally of the economic cost of disasters in 2006 ranked the Sidoarjo mud volcano in second place, behind the deliberately-lit fires that annually ravage lowland forests on Sumatra and Borneo to make way for plantation crops. Both events amount to corporate malfeasance and environmental ruin hiding behind natural phenomena. The cruelest blow is to those who labor in the shadow of such willful destruction. Look no further than the entrepreneurs in Porong whose small family-owned factories-the lifeblood of Indonesia’s economy-lie buried in the oozing mud.

    Indonesia is enjoying its fastest growth since the 1998 economic meltdown and fall of dictator Suharto. In retrospect, its bumpy transition to democracy now appears as a necessary learning curve that may be starting to pay off. Separatist conflicts no longer threaten the realm. Anticorruption agencies finally have teeth. Foreign investment is picking up, though not in labor-intensive manufacturing-the lure of China or Vietnam is stronger. Though government spending on education is still low, lawmakers have begun to address budgetary shortfalls.

    But the family-run conglomerates that plundered and profited, then defaulted on their loans when the crisis hit, still play an outsized role in Indonesia, as they do across Southeast Asia. Many Indonesian firms have a lukewarm regard for corporate governance and pay little heed to reputational risk, reasoning that foreign capital will always be available. At least until the recent credit squeeze in the United States, that was a reasonable bet. Last year saw a flurry of new stock and bond issues by Indonesian borrowers with abysmal reputations, including Asia Pulp & Paper, which defaulted on a record $13.9 billion in debt in 2001. It seems that foreign investors have remarkably short memories when it comes to Indonesian conglomerates. For tycoons that despoil the environment, bilk minority shareholders and fund rent-seeking politicians, the future looks bright, particularly while commodity prices remain high.

    Does this matter? Indonesia needs large companies capable of developing industries and providing services that the government can’t provide. It’s naive to expect that new entrepreneurs could replace overnight the disgraced leftovers of the Suharto era. Opaque corporate governance and corrupt regulators aren’t exclusive to Indonesia; foreign investors in China have their own horror stories to tell. But it’s easy to overlook such downside risks and focus on China’s domestic growth story and export prowess. China has also pushed its corporate giants to list on major international stock exchanges where regulations are stricter and minority shareholders expect disclosure. Few Indonesian companies seem willing or able to follow suit, preferring instead to do business in Indonesia’s malleable jurisdiction.

    Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has a solid economics team who has made smart macro decisions. Even the notoriously graft-ridden customs department has been put on its toes in recent months, and the judiciary may be next. But economic leadership needs to go further if Indonesia wants to promote a competitive system that rewards efficiency and innovation, not cartels and monopolies. In South Korea, the chaebol, or conglomerates, still exert an unhealthy influence over lawmakers, but they’ve proven that they can compete on the world stage. Few would dispute that corporate governance has improved in South Korea over the last decade, spurred by government regulators keen to cement their rise in the global economy.

    By contrast, Indonesia’s corporate sector is similar to that of the Philippines: focused primarily on squeezing profits from domestic opportunities and lobbying to keep out competitors. In his book Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, author Joe Studwell argues that economic success in the region has come despite, rather than because of, the outsized influence of its tycoons. He finds little to cheer in the region’s recovery since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, since the political elites apparently remain beholden to the same dominant players.

    This business model doesn’t lend itself to global competitiveness. Boston Consulting Group released an annual ranking in December 2007 of the top 100 go-getting companies in developing economies. Not surprisingly, Indian and Chinese enterprises dominated the list. Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest country, only managed one entry: instant noodle maker Indofood Sukses Makmur, part of the diversified Salim Group. Optimists point to the generational changes taking place in Southeast Asian conglomerates that are allowing Western-educated scions to take over the reins. This shift, coupled with regional economic integration, can be a force for good, if it means improving corporate governance and environmental practices.

    But local regulators will still need to show teeth to increase the cost of noncompliance, as consumer activism-a key ingredient in shaping corporate behavior in the West-is lacking in Asia. Environmental campaigners in Indonesia have sought to close this gap by targeting careless resource companies, usually foreign investors such as U.S. mining companies, with limited success. In December, a district court in Jakarta rejected a lawsuit by Friends of the Earth Indonesia that sought damages against Lapindo and national and local government officials over their culpability in the Sidoarjo mudflow. The court ruled that it was a “natural disaster” and fined the plaintiffs a token amount.

    Of course, many Southeast Asian conglomerates will choose not to go overseas because the returns are better at home. Opening up their markets to more foreign competition would force them to overhaul their model to stay ahead of the game. In turn, new entrants from more closely regulated economies will demand a level playing field, which should mean better corporate governance and less opaque regulatory systems. But without political will to tackle the most egregious abuses by influential companies, it’s hard to see how commercial agreements alone would be enough to shift behavior, since domestic interests usually trump trade relations. The strides made in South Korea on overhauling corporate governance and improving regulatory frameworks followed the election in 1997 of human-rights activist Kim Dae Jun. Globalization was a factor, but so was the determination of a newly elected leader to raise standards.

    There’s another reason why Indonesia needs to clean up its corporate sector. Government inaction in the face of corporate abuses such as the Lapindo case does a disservice to the victims and, more broadly, to Indonesian voters. Unless politicians can hold wrongdoers to account-and make sure that taxpayers aren’t stiffed for the clean-up bill-it becomes harder to make the case for democracy as the cure for Indonesia’s ills. That would play to the gallery in much of Asia, where authoritarian governments are the norm and public participation is suppressed by “father-knows-best” rulers. With a presidential vote in Indonesia scheduled in 2009, a campaign by a strongman candidate who promises a firmer hand might be persuasive. That would be a setback for a democracy that is currently the most dynamic and decentralized in Southeast Asia, where voters are able to turf out local mayors who don’t cut it. Such a privilege is rare in the region.

    Lapindo belongs to the Bakrie Group, a diversified conglomerate headed by Mr. Bakrie, 60. Its units include oil-palm plantations, mobile telecommunications, property and energy. Mr. Bakrie, who was ranked by Forbes in 2007 as Indonesia’s richest man with a net worth of $5.4 billion, is a senior executive of Golkar, the largest political party in Indonesia’s parliament. At the time of the accident, which he calls a “natural disaster,” he held the most senior economic post in President Yudhoyono’s cabinet. Lapindo tried to buy off homeless villagers with hand-outs as long as they signed waivers that exempted the company from lawsuits. When frustrated protesters from the accident site rallied in Jakarta to press for compensation and housing, Mr. Bakrie’s position appeared to be in doubt. But instead, when President Yudhoyono announced a reshuffle, his economics czar was moved to a new position: coordinating minister for public welfare.

    To the families stuck in limbo in makeshift refugee camps in Porong, or living in rented rooms, that sounded like a cruel joke. Many have received cash hand-outs from Lapindo, but are waiting for full compensation for their loss of land, housing and livelihood. After months of dithering, President Yudhoyono issued a decree in 2007 that mandated the company to pay $412 million in compensation, including the purchase of despoiled land. But to the anger of would-be recipients, Lapindo insisted on paying 20% up-front, and the rest within two years. Sunarto, a businessman who goes by one name, says he refuses to accept the 20%, worth about $6,500 based on the value of his inundated family compound, which included a small cigarette factory that employed 40 workers. He wants the company to pay out now, so that villagers can rebuild their lives and plan for the future. “The local economy has collapsed… Even if you want to start a business, there’s nobody buying anything,” he said.

    If a foreign oil company had triggered the mudflow, it might have been a different story. Pressure from shareholders and environmental activists, fanned by international news coverage, are a potent mix. But Bakrie calculated that it could hide behind the fiction of an unstoppable natural disaster and rely on its political clout to do the rest. From a bottom-line perspective, it was the right call. Taking full responsibility would have exposed the company to economic liabilities that are likely to run into billions of dollars, given the extent of the damage and the continued mudflow. Instead, Bakrie tried to arrange a fire sale of Lapindo, its part-owned unit, to obscure offshore investors for a nominal amount. However, Indonesia’s capital-markets regulator blocked the sale, which appeared to be a ploy to wash Bakrie’s hands of the toxic mud volcano. It was a shot by regulators across the bows of a local conglomerate, an all too rare sign that not all Indonesian institutions are cowed by their political masters.

    Simon Montlake

    © Far East Economic Review

  • Warga Pengontrak Tetap Menuntut

    Warga Pengontrak Tetap Menuntut

    Dua tahun sudah semburan Lumpur Lapindo merusak sendi-sendi kehidupan rakyat di Porong, Tanggulangin dan Jabon, Kabupaten Sidoarjo, dan hingga sekarang masih banyak ketidakadilan yang belum terselesaikan dalam kasus ini. Salah satunya adalah mereka yang dulu statusnya adalah pengontrak sebelum lumpur menenggelamkan rumah dan tempat usaha mereka.

    Anton dulu tinggal di Perumahan Tanggulangin Anggun Sejahtera I (TAS I) blok L-9/6. Dalam perbincangan dengan tim media, beliau menyatakan bahwa sesungguhnya apa yang diminta oleh pengontrak itu tidak muluk-muluk. “Ini tidak seperti apa yang dikatakan oleh Yusuf Martak pada waktu itu, bahwasannya warga pengontrak itu menuntut minta rumah. Itu yang sesungguhnya, ucapannya Yusuf Marta itu tidak betul sama sekali. Karena warga pengontrak itu menuntut Jadup yang disamakan dengan warga yang lain” tegas Anton.

    Menurutnya tuntutan pengontrak hanyalah meminta uang kontrak dan jatah hidup yang diberikan kepada mereka sama dengan korban lain, dimana sekitar 315 KK hanya mendapatkan uang kontrak senilai 2,5 juta dan jatah hidup tidak dapat sama sekali. Padahal menurut perjanjian dengan pihak Lapindo ada kesepakatan untuk memberikan kepada semua korban lumpur, uang kontrak sebesar 5 juta dan jatah hidup 300 ribu/jiwa/bulan selama 6 bulan, serta uang boyongan 500 ribu rupiah.

    Selain itu, karena dulunya warga pengontrak ini menggantungkan hidupnya dari usaha kecil di tengah-tengah lingkungan perumahan, dan itu semua ikut hilang ketika lumpur menenggelamkan rumah mereka, para pengontrak juga menuntut ganti rugi UKM. Setali tiga uang, tuntutan ini juga tidak dipenuhi Lapindo, padahal Lapindo sudah pernah menjanjikan untuk memberi ganti rugi UKM kepada mereka yang usahanya hancur akibat semburan lumpur.

    “Untuk ganti rugi UKM memang sudah ada yang dapat bervariasi antara 5 juta hingga 7 juta, tapi kebanyakan dari kami belum menerima itu” demikian sambung bapak berusia 50 tahun ini. Dari pihak pemerintah sendiri mulai dari DPRD, Bupati hingga departemen sosial hanya selalu berjanji untuk membawa aspirasi warga ini, nyatanya hingga lebih dari 1,5 tahun harapan mereka belum juga terwujud. ““Semua mengatakan selalu dan selalu akan diperjuangkan tapi sampai sekarang realisasinya tidak ada”,” kata Anton.

    Kegagalan pemerintah dalam memberikan perlindungan sosial kepada warga pengontrak ini jelas memberikan dampak langsung. Mereka kehilangan mata pencaharian, dan kalaupun berusaha membangun dari awal lagi, tidak ada modal yang mencukupi untuk melanjutkan usaha mereka.

    ““Keadaan warga pengontrak sudah terlalu minus dan susah karena selama ini mereka tidak bisa bekerja, selama ini mata pencaharian mereka ya disana (di perumahan TAS I yang tenggelam), setelah adanya lumpur mereka tidak dapat bekerja, secara ekonomi keadaan mereka sudah kolaps,”” demikian lanjut bapak yang telah dikaruniai 3 anak ini.

    Namun segala kesusahan ini tidak membuat perjuangan warga melemah, Anton dan warga lainnya akan tetap menuntut hak-hak mereka yang selama ini dipungkiri baik oleh lapindo maupun oleh pemerintah. “Selama jadup dan kontrak kami belum dibayar, kami tetap akan menuntut!,”” demikian pungkas Anton dengan tegas.[re]

  • Skandal Ekosida Lumpur Lapindo

    Ekosida merupakan istilah yang digunakan dalam bidang lingkungan hidup. Jika genosida diartikan sebagai pembasmian seluruh atau sebagian bangsa, ras, kelompok etnik ataupun kelompok agama, maka ekosida diartikan sebagai pembasmian atau perusakan sistem ekologi normal, yang tentu berakibat pada nasib buruk manusia.

    Tama Leaver (1997) menjelaskan tulisan William Gibson dan Ridley Scott, bahwa ekosida merupakan efek buruk dari upaya-upaya ekonomi untuk mencapai kesejahteraan global (akibat globalisasi), penerapan faham ultra-utilitarianisme serta eksploitasi dari cara-cara produksi mutakhir yang dilakukan kaum kapitalis.

    Ekosida sebenarnya tak jauh dari model genosida, misalnya terjadinya ‘pembasmian penduduk’ akibat toksinasi atau kehancuran fungsi lingkungan hidup seperti yang terjadi pada komunitas penduduk sekitar tambang emas Newmont di Buyat dan lain-lain, serta kematian massal dalam banjir besar atau longsor akibat perusakan fungsi lingkungan hidup. Dalam kasus lumpur Lapindo, ekosida telah terjadi sebagai fakta notoir (tak perlu dibuktikan lagi, sebab telah menjadi pengetahuan umum).

    Zat beracun

    PBB melalui United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination sejak Juli 2006 telah merekomendasikan untuk adanya penelitian dan monitoring secara reguler terhadap soal lingkungan dalam kasus lumpur Lapindo. Tetapi tampaknya pemerintah Indonesia tidak terlalu memperhatikan hal yang berkaitan kesehatan masyarakat dalam jangka pendek dan panjang akibat semburan lumpur tersebut. Contohnya, gas semburan lumpur Lapindo itu sudah menewaskan dua warga Siring Barat (Sutrisno, meninggal 14/3/2008 dan Luluk, meninggal 26/3/2008) serta puluhan orang serta anak-anak dirawat di rumah sakit.

    Guna mendeteksi bahaya akibat pencemaran dan perusakan ekologi karena semburan lumpur Lapindo itu, September 2007 sampai dengan Januari 2008, Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (Walhi) Jawa Timur bekerjasama dengan beberapa ahli dan laboratorium melakukan penelitian lumpur Lapindo di Sidoarjo di berbagai titik hingga ke wilayah terluar akibat semburan lumpur Lapindo. Penelitian yang dilakukan Walhi tersebut juga dalam rangka untuk ‘meneguhkan keyakinan’, apa benar hasil penelitian beberapa laboratorium kampus di dalam negeri yang menyatakan tak ada masalah dengan kandungan lumpur Lapindo, dibandingkan dengan hasil penelitian sementara (awal) pemerintah RI dan Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa (PBB) yang menyebutkan adanya kemungkinan fatal akibat gas semburan lumpur Lapindo.

    Penelitian Walhi tentang logam berat akibat lumpur Lapindo menunjukkan hasil sebagai berikut:

    Parameter
    Satuan
    Kep. MenKes No. 907/2002
    Hasil Analisa Logam Pada Materi
    Lumpur Lapindo
    Air Lumpur Lapindo
    Sedimen Sungai Porong
    Air Sungai Porong
    Kromium (Cr)
    mg/L
    0,05
    nd
    nd
    nd
    nd
    Kadmium (Cd)
    mg/L
    0,003
    0,3063
    0,0314
    0,2571
    0,0271
    Tembaga (Cu)
    mg/L
    1
    0,4379
    0,008
    0,4919
    0,0144
    Timbal (Pb)
    mg/L
    0,05
    7,2876
    0,8776
    3,1018
    0,6949

    Perbandingan parameter ambang batas logam berat sebagai berikut:

    Parameter
    Satuan
    Kadar maksimal yang diperbolehkan
    Per. MenKes No. 416/1990
    Kep.MenKes No. 907/2002
    WHO 1992
    Uni Eropa
    Kanada
    USA
    Kromium (Cr)
    mg/L
    0,05
    0,05
    0,05
    0,005
    0,05
    0,05
    Kadmium (Cd)
    mg/L
    0,005
    0,003
    0,005
    0,005
    0,005
    0,005
    Tembaga (Cu)
    mg/L
    1
    1
    1
    0,1
    1
    1
    Timbal (Pb)
    mg/L
    0,05
    0,05
    0,05
    0,05
    0,05
    0,05

    Selain logam berat, Walhi juga meneliti kandungan polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Karena mahalnya biaya, Walhi hanya menguji kandungan Benz(a)anthracene dan Chrysene yang hasilnya mencapai ribuan kali lipat dari ambang batas. Beberapa senyawa lain yang tergolong dalam PAH adalah acenaphthene, acenaphtylene, anthtracene, benz(a)antracene, benz(a)pyrene, benz(b)fluoranthene, chrysene, dibenz(a,h)anthracene, fluoranthene, fluorene, indeno(1,2,3cd)pyrene, naphthalene, phenanthrene dan pyrene (Liguori et al, 2006), dan masih terdapat ribuan senyawa lainnya.

    Sebagai perbandingan, Keputusan Menteri Lingkungan Hidup No. 51 Tahun 2004 menetapkan baku mutu PAH dalam air laut untuk wisata bahari sebesar 0,003 mg/liter. Sedangkan baku mutu Hidrokarbon dalam udara yang diizinkan berdasarkan PP No 41 tahun 1999 adalah 160 ug/Nm3. Namun dalam temuan Walhi, kadar Benz(a)anthracene di titik tertentu ada yang mencapai 0,5174 mg/kg (sampel terendah 0,4214 mg/kg). Sedangkan kadar Chrysene ada yang mencapai 806,31 μg/kg lumpur kering (sampel terendah 203,41 μg/kg).

    Dalam jangka pendek, akibatnya hanya tampak adanya penduduk yang keracunan gas dan bahkan sampai ada yang meninggal dunia. Namun dalam jangka panjang, lumpur Lapindo tak hanya menjadi nasib buruk masa depan para korban langsung, tapi juga masyarakat yang setiap hari melintasi sekitar semburan lumpur Lapindo yang terancam oleh penyakit kanker akibat senyawa PAH yang bersifat karsiogenik. Pasalnya, zat beracun yang termasuk PAH bersifat bebas tempat, bisa bercampur udara, air, tanah dan seluruh media yang ada.

    Dahulu, Chief Operating Officer PT Energi Mega Persada Tbk., Faiz Shahab menyatakan pihaknya serius membangun pabrik batu bata skala besar di lokasi bencana. Namun, Kepala Unit Pusat Studi Bencana Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Surabaya (ITS) Ir Amien Widodo mengatakan bahwa lumpur Lapindo itu bisa memicu kanker. Sifat-sifat karsinogenik ini terutama dipicu oleh kandungan logam berat yang terdapat dalam lumpur (Kompas, 14/7/2006). Itulah mengapa pabrik batu bata yang direncanakan itu tidak ada kabarnya lagi, sebab bisa jadi mereka takut dengan sifat bahaya lumpur Lapindo.

    Logam berat juga bisa menimbulkan penyakit degeneratif (kelainan fisik) dan menimbulkan keturunan penderita slow learner (lambat berpikir), sedangkan zat-zat beracun PAH mengakibatkan kanker, permasalahan reproduksi, membahayakan organ tubuh seperti liver, paru-paru, dan kulit. Setidaknya lima hingga sepuluh tahun ke depan baru akan tampak akibatnya.

    Peran negara dan korporasi

    Artikel ini tidak bermaksud ‘meneror’ masyarakat, tetapi didasari hasil penelitian laboratorium. Para ahli yang turut dalam penelitian Walhi tersebut berpesan agar Walhi ‘merahasiakan’ identitasnya sebab kampus tempat mengajarnya rupanya sudah tidak bisa independen. Ini semakin menunjukkan bahwa hegemoni korporasi telah menyerang kemerdekaan intelektual.

    Terlepas dari semua itu, setidak-tidaknya pemerintah RI seharusnya lebih serius dalam upaya menyelamatkan masyarakat dari akibat buruk lumpur Lapindo yang dalam banyak hal selalu ditutup-tutupi. Jika tidak, sama halnya pemerintah terlibat dalam skandal ekosida, sebagaimana banyak laboratorium domestik yang membuat kesimpulan berdasarkan ‘pesanan’ sehingga tidak lagi obyektif. Inilah fenomena kekuasaan kapitalis yang menerapkan faham ultra-utilitarianisme, tidak peduli dengan nasib sosial.

    Para pejabat pemerintah dan seluruh pengambil keputusan korporasi kasus semburan lumpur Lapindo, termasuk ‘laboratorium palsu’ mungkin bisa mengelak dan bersembunyi pada hari ini dalam kejahatan ekosida itu. Tetapi kelak kasus ini akan membawa mereka ke pengadilan hak asasi manusia (HAM), bahkan dalam forum hukum internasional, jika mereka tidak mau bertanggung jawab mulai hari ini untuk tunduk pada hukum internasional dan nasional dalam rangka memenuhi hak-hak para korban lumpur Lapindo yang sudah lama menderita dan terancam menjadi korban ekosida.

    Sebagai pihak yang telah mengambil ‘manfaat’ (utilitas) dari negara ini, berlakulah adil dan santun kepada rakyat sebagai pemegang kedaulatan negara ini! Jangan hanya mau enaknya, lalu lari dari tanggung jawab!

    Percepatan penyelesaian sosial hendaknya segera dilakukan agar warga korban lumpur semakin bisa diselamatkan dari kejahatan ekosida tersebut. Alangkah malang nasib warga korban lumpur yang diombang-ambingkan oleh pihak Lapindo. Dahulu Lapindo bersuara lantang akan patuh kepada model penyelesaian menurut pasal 15 Perpres No. 14/2007, tapi kini malah membangkangnya dengan memaksakan cara cash & resettlement dengan alasan bahwa tanah-tanah Petok D, letter C dan gogol tak dapat dibuatkan akte jual beli. Padahal sudah ada pedoman berupa 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.

    Jika Lapindo si anak korporasi Grup Bakrie itu bisa ‘mempermainkan’ diskresi hukum yang dibuat pemerintah, lalu Presiden yang membuat diskresi hukum itu diam saja, maka kepala negara ini telah diinjak-injak. Jika begitu, bagaimana kewajiban pemerintah untuk melindungi korban lumpur Lapindo dan menegakkan hukum?

    SUBAGYO, S.H. 

  • PT Lapindo Brantas Makes Things Clear as Mud in Indonesia

    On May 29, 2006, PT Lapindo Brantas, an Indonesian energy company, was drilling a wildcat well, the Banjar-Panji-1.

    The driller had struggled through 2,500 feet of clays, underlain by gritty sands and volcaniclastics, and decided to drill ahead into porous limestone below 9,000 feet without stopping to set casing. That was a mistake. At about 5 a.m., a fissure opened about 600 feet from the wellhead, and steam, water, hydrogen sulphide, and methane began to escape. Shortly afterwards, hot viscous mud began to flow rapidly from the fissure. It has been flowing ever since, taking with it homes, factories, livelihoods, crops, roads, railways, and reputations, and creating a huge industrial scandal that will have serious repercussions.

    The Banjar well is one of the most environmentally destructive oil and gas wells ever drilled. The toxic mud has been flowing for 18 months now – and could flow for decades to come – at rates of up to 150,000 cubic meters per day. To date it covers at least 2.5 square miles with a billion cubic feet of mud that is quickly turning into mudstone.

    Lapindo Brantas was operating the well on behalf of its two partners: Santos, Australia’s third-largest oil and gas company, and Medco Energi of Indonesia. The well’s target was natural gas deposits in the Sidoarjo area of eastern Java, an area characterized by mud volcanoes. And the fact that Java is the most densely populated island on earth is what makes the Banjar well’s toxic mud volcano so destructive.

    The already horrific catalogue of damage continues to grow. The mud has displaced 13,000 people from their homes. It has inundated 11 towns, 30 schools, 25 factories, a national toll road, and the state-owned Sidoarjo-Pasuruan railway line. It has buried rice paddies and shrimp farms. (Sidoarjo was the second largest shrimp-producing town in the country.) It has also shut down one of east Java’s key industrial hubs with a slow-moving tsunami of hot, sticky, smelly mud that hardens to rock as it dehydrates and cools. It caused a Pertamina-owned gas pipeline to rupture and explode, killing 11. Environmental damage is estimated at between $5 billion and $10 billion.

    If this had happened on the edges of a city, the political response would have been immediate. But these are rural Indonesians, and since they have no money, and therefore no political voice or leverage in post-Suharto Indonesia, they stay displaced, uncompensated, and, until recently, ignored.

    A network of levees and dams has been erected to contain the mud, but have not been successful. Some sludge is pumped into the Porong River, but this has not been successful either; much of the sludge is insoluble and sits in the river in blocks. The rest is rapidly silting up the river and its delta and affecting its flow, causing flooding.

    The mud, containing a dangerous cocktail of benzene, toluene, xylene, heavy metals, ammonia, and sulphur dioxide, is rendering the river lifeless and its estuary barren. The government has proposed channelling the mud to the sea by canal, but this has some obvious drawbacks and has not been tried (yet).

    Other methods to contain the flow have been tried. The national government’s response team air-dropped 1,500 large concrete balls connected by steel chains into the fissure. But that only made the mud flow faster. Japanese contractors proposed building a high-pressure pipeline to divert the mud to the coast for land reclamation. Local authorities brought together 50 mystics to use their supernatural powers to stop the mudflow, for an $11,000 prize. In another bizarre twist, Lapindo Brantas funded production costs for a 13-episode television soap opera called “Digging a Hole, Filling a Hole” to highlight and dramatize stories of the company’s heroism. Needless to say it was not a big hit.

    More recently, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation offered loans of $110 million to build a 130-foot high containment dam around the mudflow, on the theory that the weight of dammed mud would eventually cut off the flow.

    The technical post mortem appears straightforward: Lapindo Brantas’s drill bit penetrated an overpressured reservoir, causing hydrofractures to propagate outwards from the uncased hole and upwards into the overlying seal, rapidly entraining mud, gas, and water to the surface under high pressure. Unfortunately for the victims, the technical explanation is the only thing about this disaster that is straightforward. The rest would give Kafka nightmares.

    Perhaps the drama’s most surreal aspects concern Lapindo Brantas and its owner Aburizal Bakrie, one of Asia’s richest men who also happens to be a senior executive of Golkar (the ruling party) and the former minister for economics. He’s also currently the ironically titled Minister for the People’s Welfare, a financial backer of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s 2004 election campaign, and one of the vice president’s closest friends. (Bakrie was closely tied to the former Indonesian dictator, Suharto. In the 1990s, those ties helped him to obtain a substantial ownership stake in Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, the U.S. mining outfit that operates the massive Grasberg mine in West Papua. Bakrie sold the Freeport stake in 1997.) Rather than resign his portfolio, Bakrie has tried to convince the government that Lapindo Brantas was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, an innocent witness to a natural disaster. On two occasions he has tried to sell Lapindo Brantas to escape liability, but has been blocked by the financial regulator. The first proposed sale was for $2 to an unnamed offshore company. The second, for $1 million, was to a U.S.-based outfit run by American friends of the family.

    Recently, partner Medco Energi accused Lapindo Brantas of gross negligence in the operation of the Banjar-Panji-1 well. Shortly after that bombshell, the police opened a criminal investigation into the actions of 13 senior managers and engineers at Lapindo Brantas.

    Until recently, Lapindo Brantas was allowed to choose, on a purely voluntary basis, how, why, and whether to compensate those people and businesses affected by the mudflow. It offered some families payments of up to $540 to cover two years’ displacement rental, $60 in moving costs, and $35 per month for food, if they agreed to free Lapindo Brantas from any further liability.

    Most residents rejected the offer, preferring to keep their options open. The company also claimed it was spending $2.4 million per day on efforts to stop or divert the mud, but this was subsequently found to actually be just under $300 per day. Recently, Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono issued a decree ordering the company “to bear all costs and repercussions” of the disaster, and pay compensation to those displaced. But since the decree has no legal consequence, it became apparent that this was another Kafka-esque way to avoid paying anything to anyone. The government has tried to minimize the political damage by setting aside $127 million from the state budget for compensation payments. But the applications are to be screened by a 50-person committee!

    Politicians are outraged because it appears that the government is bankrolling Lapindo Brantas and the Bakries. Citizens are skeptical that they will ever see any of the money.

    Many analysts predict that the Bakrie Group will simply resort to bankruptcy rather than foot any of the multi-billion dollar clean-up and compensation costs. They are money men, not oil men, and won’t lose any sleep if this forces them out of the oil and gas business for good. It is the prudent operators in Indonesia, trying to conduct their activities safely and with a commitment to the country, who will have to live with the aftermath.

    All of which is music to the ears of law firms that specialize in class-action suits. There are legal precedents for hearing offshore class actions in Australia when Australian companies are involved. So look out, Santos. Although it is only an 18 percent non-operating partner in the project, Santos is the only solid target in this whole sorry saga. The company has set aside about $60 million in its current budget to cover liability arising from the mudflow. But litigation experts in Australia believe that amount could underestimate Santos’s liability by as much as two orders of magnitude.

    Bret Mattes

    Sumber: http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=651

  • New Indonesia Calamity, A Mud Bath, Is Man-Made

    It started as a natural gas well. It has become geysers of mud and water, and in a country plagued by earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis another calamity in the making, though this one is largely man-made.

    Eight villages are completely or partly submerged, with homes and more than 20 factories buried to the rooftops. Some 13,000 people have been evacuated. The four-lane highway west of here has been cut in two, as has the rail line, dealing a serious blow to the economy of this region in East Java, an area vital to the country’s economy. The muck has already inundated an area covering one and a half square miles. And it shows no signs of stopping.

    The mud is rising by the hour, and now spewing forth at the rate of about 170,000 cubic yards a day, or about enough to cover Central Park.

    Foreign companies, environmental groups and political observers are now watching closely to see whether the government will hold the company that drilled the well accountable for the costs of the cleanup, which could easily reach $1 billion. The company is part of a conglomerate controlled by Aburizal Bakrie, a cabinet member and billionaire who was a major contributor to the campaign of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

    The disaster occurred as the company, Lapindo Brantas, drilled thousands of feet to tap natural gas and used practices that geologists, mining engineers and Indonesian officials described as faulty. But as the liabilities have escalated, Lapindo was sold — for $2 — last month to an offshore company, owned by the Bakrie Group, and many fear it will declare bankruptcy, allowing its owners to walk away.

    Mr. Bakrie declined to be interviewed. A spokeswoman for Lapindo, Yunawati Teryana, said that it was too early to conclude that Lapindo had acted negligently. She noted that some geologists had said that this was a natural disaster, a natural mud volcano, perhaps set off by seismic activity in the area.

    Government officials and company engineers are not hopeful that they can contain the problem. The government plans to pump the mud into the Porong River, which flows into the sea 20 miles north of here.

    ”It will be the death of the ecosystem around that area,” said Amien Widodo, an environmental geologist who teaches at the November 10 Institute of Technology in Surabaya. There is debate whether the mud is toxic. But the sheer volume alone will smother just about everything in its path, he said.

    The area’s commerce has been devastated. ”We are angry because we were living comfortably in our own home and now we are forced to leave,” Reni Matakupan said as she stood here looking across 200 yards of mud at her family’s factory, DeBrima, which was filling with mud.

    The problems began in late May when the company had reached about 9,000 feet, Mr. Widodo said. It continued to drill to this depth even though it had not installed what is known as a casing around the well to the levels required under Indonesian mining regulations, and good mining practices, Mr. Widodo said. The company experienced problems with the drilling that led to a loss of pressure in the well. That is when the mud started seeping in from the sides of the unprotected well bore, at a depth of about 6,000 feet.

    The mud was stopped by cement plugs that the company had inserted into the well hole. The mud then sought other avenues of escape, eventually breaking through the earth, and creating mud volcanoes.

    If the proper casing had been in place, the mud would not have entered the well, and would not have discovered these other avenues to the surface, said Mr. Widodo, a conclusion supported by mining engineers. Several Western and Indonesian mining engineers spoke about the matter, some offering graphs and mining details that have not been made public, but only on the condition that they not be identified, for fear of running afoul of Mr. Bakrie, the billionaire company owner.

    There does not appear to be any government investigation into what set off the eruptions. After the first eruptions, in late May, the police in Sidoarjo, the district at the center of the disaster, began an investigation, but it appears to have languished. ”I am not confident that anyone will ever be prosecuted,” said H. Win Hendrarso, the regent for Sidoarjo, choosing his words carefully. In an interview in his high-ceilinged office, Mr. Hendrarso, who was elected a year ago, said he had no authority to investigate. Any investigations would have to be by the central government in Jakarta, he said.

    ”I just want Lapindo to take responsibility,” he said. But Lapindo no longer exists, and the company to which it has been sold may not have any assets. Last month, Lapindo’s parent company announced that it was selling Lapindo for $2 to Lyte Ltd., a company that is registered in the offshore Island of Jersey. The majority shareholder in the parent company is the Bakrie Group, and the Bakrie Group is also the sole owner of Lyte, according to public documents.

    The Bakrie Group is owned by Aburizal Bakrie, and his brothers. Lapindo’s parent company, Energi Mega Persada, said in an official securities filing that it was selling Lapindo because of the huge costs it faced in cleaning up after the mud flow, and it was better to use its assets for its other oil and gas projects.

    An Energi spokesman, Herwin Hidayat, said the Bakrie Group remained committed to cleaning up the mud, through Lyte. He declined to say what assets Lyte had, if any. He said it was a ”functioning company.” He declined to give any examples of any business that it had done.

    A concern now is whether Lyte, which has been renamed Bakrie Oil & Gas, will declare bankruptcy, which seems inevitable. ”That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Mr. Hendrarso. If the Bakrie Group does not pay, the Indonesia government will be left with the bill, officials said.

    Raymond Bonner and Muktita Suhartono 

    © New York Times

  • Mud volcano ‘on brink of collapse’

    The world’s largest mud volcano that has been erupting continuously since 2006 is beginning to show signs of “catastrophic collapse”, according to geologists who have been monitoring it and the surrounding area.

    The volcano – named Lusi – has already devastated homes and businesses in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, displacing around 10,000 people and killing 14.

    Now scientists say that the land near the central vent could sag by up to 146 metres in the next decade. In March, the scientists observed drops of up to 3 metres in one night. Most of the subsidence in the area around the volcano is more gradual, at around 0.1cm per day.

    “It is starting to show signs that the central part is undergoing a more catastrophic collapse,” said Prof Richard Davies, a geologist at Durham University.

    “The fact that the whole area is collapsing means there are probably new faults forming. These faults are new pathways for fluids to seep up to the surface. We’ve never really seen a mud volcano develop so quickly.”

    The team have monitored the subsidence using fixed GPS stations which are able to record very accurate ground movements by communicating with satellites. They reported their results in the journal Environmental Geology.

    Last year, the Indonesian authorities began a desperate plan to drop 2,000 concrete balls into Lusi’s central vent in an effort to stem the flow. Davies watched the operation, which went on for 2 months.

    “What happened was they dropped them and never saw them again,” he said. “It just gobbled them up.”

    Since it began spewing noxious mud and gasses on May 29 2006, Lusi has blanketed an area of around 7 cubic kilometres, covering 10,426 houses, 35 schools, 65 mosques and one orphanage. The advancing mud is now contained behind human-engineered dykes.

    The central collapse may be good news because it will make room for more mud at the surface and so take the pressure off the dykes. But subsidence around the submerged zone will have more impact on the local community.

    A bridge that developed cracks has already had to be dismantled, railway tracks have been moved out of line and in November 2006, 13 people were killed in a gas blast caused by an underground pipe rupturing.

    Davies does not believe there is any way to stop Lusi now. “I think now the system has become so big … the plumbing system is so complex you couldn’t hope to stop it.”

    James Randerson

    Sumber: The Guardian

  • Mining firm blamed for mud flooding: report

    A police probe into the cause of the “mud volcano” that has made 15,000 people homeless in Indonesia’s East Java reportedly points to negligence by a mining company.

    Mud began to flow out of an exploratory gas drilling well operated by Pt Lapindo Brantas in May, last year. The mud has since flooded about 600 hectares of land and submerged whole villages.

    Kompas newspaper quotes East Java police chief Herman Suryadi Sumawiredja as saying experts believe there is a link between the mud flow and the activities of the well.

    He says police have questioned eight experts over the cause of the outflow. The police chief says the probe has concluded that the mud began to break out to the surface because of negligence by PT Lapindo Brantas during drilling at the well.

    The police have declared 13 people as suspects in the case, all of whom are executives of PT Lapindo Brantas or field workers. Their indictments are still being prepared.

    Kompas also quotes Indonesian Geologists Association head Andang Bachtiar as saying Lapindo’s use of mud to offset fluid coming out from the well was of a wrong density and caused the shaft to crack.

    An oil and gas expert from the Bandung Institute of Technology, Rudi Rubiandini, says the company used the regulatory steel casing to drill the well only up to a depth of 3,600 feet and dispensed with its use for the remaining 5,700 feet.

    Sumber: ABC News Online

  • Lusi sinking into its own caldera

    Two years after it first erupted, Lusi is back in the news again, this time because the area around the vent is starting to show signs of subsidence. The world’s fastest-growing mud volcano is collapsing by up to three metres overnight, suggests new research.

    As the second anniversary (May 29) of the eruption on the Indonesian island of Java approaches, scientists have found that the volcano – named Lusi – could subside to depths of more than 140 metres with consequences for the surrounding environment.

    The sudden overnight three metre collapses could be the beginning of a caldera – a large basin-shaped volcanic depression – according to the research team, from Durham University UK, and the Institute of Technology Bandung, in Indonesia.

    Their findings, based on Global Positioning System (GPS) and satellite measurements, are due to be published in the journal Environmental Geology.

    The fact that subsidence is occuring is actually no surprise; it’s a natural consequence of the eruption itself. Lusi was the result of the breaching of a subsurface aquifer – a porous, water-bearing rock horizon, which was being squeezed by the weight of all the overlying rocks. Because the cap rocks were impermeable mudstones, the water couldn’t move anywhere in response to this squeezing, meaning that the water within the aquifer was being held under extremely high pressure.

    As soon as the breach occurred, all that pressure had an outlet, causing high pressure water to burst upwards, mixing with the overlying mudstones on the way to create the lovely ooze that is currently engulfing Sidoarjo province. For those who remember Super Soakers, they work along a similar principle – you increase the water pressure by pumping air into a sealed water reservoir, resulting in a much stronger water jet when you finally pull the trigger and create a ‘breach’.

    Obviously this is going to lead to a decrease in water pressure within the aquifer; since this pressure was resisting the weight of the overlying rock – now augmented by the weight of the mud that has erupted onto the surface – a decrease will lead to compression of the aquifer, and subsidence, in the area where the eruption is occuring.

    The Environmental Geology paper by Abidin et al. observes exactly this. The GPS data presented was collected between June 2006 and September 2007, and indicates fast subsidence of 2-4 centimetres a day in the first four or five months after the eruption, and slower (and apparently slowing) subsidence of 0.1-0.3 cm a day thereafter. Even after it slowed down, that’s getting on for a metre of displacement every year, which is very fast by geological standards.

    The paper also refers to more recent measurements where large vertical displacements – 10s of cm or even metres – appear to have occurred literally overnight, which might indicate that some of the subsidence is now being taken up by extensional faulting around the vent.

    The formation of such a caldera may restrict the lateral extent of the mud flow, by creating a natural hole for it to fill (although human intervention though the building of dams is also a control here).

    Radar interferometry, which compares altimetry data collected after the eruption to altimetry collected before to highlight changes in topography, has also been used to examine elevation changes over a wider area, and confirms that subsidence has occurred up to 10 km from the central vent. Interestingly, it also shows that a sizeable area to the northeast has been uplifted since the eruption:

    The boundary between the uplifted region and the subsiding vent follows the trend of a fault which runs through the area, indicating that it has been active since Lusi first erupted. This is very interesting, because it is this fault – the Watukosek Fault – that has been cited in the argument that Lusi was a natural response to an earthquake, rather than shoddy drilling practices.

    Does this new data support that interpretation, and let PT Lapindo Brantas (or whatever they’re called now) off the hook? No, actually – the deformation associated with motion on this fault only begins after July 2006, two or three months after the eruption first started, so it in fact fairly conclusively proves that it was not involved in the initial breakthrough. Somehow, though, I doubt this will be the final word on this particular subject.

    Chris Rowan

    Sumber: Science Blogs

  • Volcano of mud makes 50,000 homeless

    Campaigners say drilling by energy firm caused huge eruption, which has already killed 13 in Indonesia.

    The people of Sidoarjo gathered to say prayers this week. Beside a noxious sea of shifting grey mud they asked for help to rebuild their lives and for deliverance from further encroachment by the methane-spitting sludge.

    Already 13 people from this district in the east of the Indonesian island of Java have lost their lives to the world’s largest mud volcano, and a further 50,000 have been made homeless. Every day as the volcano continues to spew forth hot mud, more people and their villages are threatened. Schools and factories have had to be moved.

    An Indonesian court says this is a natural disaster. Yet human rights campaigners, as well as a team of scientists from Durham University, say the mud volcano that has been named Lusi was triggered by a gas-drilling operation two years ago. What gives this story an added twist is that the company is owned by the family of the country’s richest man, who also happens to be Indonesia’s Welfare Minister.

    The images of Lusi are nothing short of remarkable. The area at the very centre of the volcano has been surrounded by 20m-high concrete walls erected by the authorities to try to stem the flow. But already, the area now covered by the splurging mess totals more than 1,500 acres.

    Worse still, there are signs that the entire area is sinking and forming a huge crater. “The centre is falling by 4cm a day, which amounts to around 14m a year,” said Professor Richard Davies, head of a team from Durham University which has studied the volcano. “Sidoarjo is a populated region and is collapsing as a result of the birth and growth of Lusi. This could continue to have a significant environmental impact on the surrounding area for years to come.” He said the plunging volcano could cause other fractures and faults within the landscape and even begin to start shifting the course of rivers.

    Professor Davies said his team was 99 per cent certain that the volcano had been triggered by gas drilling in the region two years ago. He said it appeared workers from the Lapindo Brantas company had drilled to more than 3,000 metres and tapped into a water-bearing aquifer that was located beneath a seam of mudstone. The effect had been to release the pressure in the aquifer, causing the water to push out through the mudstone, creating a volcano of mud.

    That initial eruption two years ago this week killed 13 people and inundated 12 villages with a flood of mud. Every day since the volcano has continued to produce between 50,000 and 150,000 cubic metres of mud – enough to fill 60 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

    Yet the people of Sidoarjo say they have received barely any help or compensation from the government or Lapindo Brantas, which is owned by the family of the billionaire government minister Aburizal Bakrie. While thousands live in makeshift shanties waiting for help and refusing to move, the company this week took out advertisements in newspapers proclaiming its “social commitment” to the area but insisting experts believe the volcano was a natural phenomenon.

    Last month, the company stopped giving out food rations to displaced villages and said they should accept the compensation that had been offered. The homeless insist instead that they be given a lump sum to build new homes. “They can’t live there for ever. They should immediately submit documents and accept the compensation,” said a company spokeswoman, Yuniwati Teryana.

    Last year the authorities ordered the company to pay more than £220m in compensation and for work to halt the spread of the mud. But campaigners say only residents in four of the villages affected by the mud were eligible for compensation and that, of those people, only 20 per cent have so far received any money from the oil and gas giant.

    Campaigners say the government is unwilling to challenge the company to do more. No one has been charged with any crime in relation to the volcano. Chalid Muhammad, who heads a campaign group, the Movement to Promote Justice for the Lapindo Victims, said: “The government only needs to have the political will and the political courage to push the company to pay compensation.”

    All the while, as the people of Sidoarjo pray for help and as Lapindo Brantas continues to deny responsibility for what happened, the world’s largest mud volcano continues to spew mud and grow. Every single day.

    Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent

    Sumber: The Independent

  • Lusi: not man-made after all?

    Regular readers of this blog should be aware of the mud volcano currently erupting in the Sidoarjo district in East Java, Indonesia, and the unsuccessful attempts to stem the flow by dropping concrete balls into the vent. Meanwhile, more and more villages, railways and factories are being engulfed, and tens of thousands of people displaced, by the encroaching mud.

    Obviously someone has to pay for the attempts at mitigation, no matter how hare-brained, and compensate those who have found their homes and livelihoods suddenly below ground level. Precisely who that someone should be has been the subject of a fair amount of legal wrangling between the Indonesian government and PT Lapindo Brantas, an exploration company who were drilling a gas well in the area at the time of the eruption.

    At first glance, it doesn’t look good for Lapindo Brantas: not only is the main vent of Lusi is a mere 200 m from their well, but it also turns out that the lower section of the borehole had not been ‘cased’, or sealed off from the surrounding rock with steel jacketing. In the paper which provided the background to my original post on Lusi, Richard Davies and his co-authors suggested that this lack of protection was directly responsible for the eruption: when the borehole penetrated a sealed limestone aquifer, it released a surge of high pressure water back up the drill hole, fracturing and mixing with the overlying mudstones and sending the a torrent of hot mud racing up to surface.

    But there is a complication. Two days before Lusi erupted, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit central Java. Could this have had something to do with the eruption of Lusi? Davies et al. say no, but a paper in press in Earth and Planetary Science Letters argues otherwise – and thanks to the obvious legal ramifications, this little spat is getting a little bit of media attention. In this second paper, Adriano Mazzini, of the University of Oslo, and his colleagues* propose that shaking due to the earthquake weakened a fault which runs close to the Lusi vent, and it was this structure, not the borehole, that initially provided an escape route for the overpressured water. Their Figure 4 shows the location of the fault (dashed line) in relation to the borehole (BJP1) and all the mud eruptions in the area in the first week of activity.

    This is interesting, and I can certainly see how the presence of this fault might have exacerbated matters. But it’s difficult to ignore the fact that even if teleseismic stresses acting on a buried fault did have a hand in triggering the eruption, of all the places Lusi could have erupted along that fault, it erupted at the closest possible point to a borehole which was not properly sealed, and therefore at high risk of blow-out. Could this be a coincidence? Mazzini et al. would have us believe so: they claim that the borehole had not penetrated down to the limestone aquifer at the time of the eruption (directly contradicting Davies et al.), and that, almost miraculously, the eruption has not registered in the borehole in any way at all:

    no kicks [pressure fluctuations]. were recorded at the bottomhole of BJP1 [at the time of the eruption], and no fluids erupted through the well… Borehole tests showed that there was no connection between the fluids circulating in the well and mud erupted on surface.

    Neither of these claims is supported by hard data in the paper, so where the two papers disagree on vital and important facts (particularly the depth attained and the timing and nature of pressure changes in the borehole), it is rather difficult to assess who is right. I have to say that regardless of the root cause of the eruption, the subsurface around the vent is probably now so pervasively fractured, and the borehole is such an obvious weak point, that it seems rather unlikely that you see no sign of the eruption in the borehole fluids.

    You’d also think that the eight experts consulted by the Indonesian police, who must surely have had access to the borehole records, would have been a bit less confident in implicating the drilling if this was the case. But then, when there are bills and blame to be assigned, the science is always going to be stretched to breaking point – especially since a law-suit demands a black-and-white answer to what may turn out to be a complicated question: ‘would Lusi have erupted, and erupted so spectacularly, if the Lapindo Brantas borehole been properly sealed?’.

    The answer to that may well be yes, even if the May 27th earthquake does prove to be a factor.

    Chris Rowan 

    Sumber: http://scienceblogs.com/highlyallochthonous/2007/08/lusi_not_manmade_after_all.php

  • Happy Birthday, Lusi (the Drilling Totally Did It)

    It’s been two years since the ground opened near Sidoarjo, Indonesia, spewing mud over the homes, farms, and businesses of tens of thousands of people. The disaster quickly acquired the rather endearing name of “Lusi”, which is short for “lumpur” (Indonesian for mud) and “Sidoarjo”. The two-year anniversary media bonanza has focused on the continuing plight of the refugees and the publication of a new paper analyzing GPS data around the mud volcano to determine that there is, indeed, going to be a big hole in the ground where the mud used to be. Chris Rowan has already blogged about that study, so I’ll not summarize it again here.

    However, there’s another paper due out, this time in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, discussing the cause of the eruption. The initial eruption was suspiciously near to a gas exploration borehole … but it was also just three days after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake. “Could the earthquake have caused the eruption?” Hah. No. It was totally the exploration well.

    We – and by “we” I mean Richard Davies (also an author on the study documenting the big hole in the ground), myself, Michael Manga, Rudi Rubiandini, and Richard Swarbrick – came to this conclusion through two main lines of argument. The first is something Michael pointed out in short a 2007 article in EOS: the earthquake in question was smaller and farther away than past earthquakes in that part of Indonesia. Compared to other earthquakes that have made mud do interesting things, it’s rinky-dink.

    In the paper, we go on at length about the various ways in which the earthquake was utterly wimpy and unexceptional. I spent a good chunk of last summer estimating the amount of shaking it probably produced and the amount of stress it put on the crust near Lusi. No matter how you slice it, the “trigger” was smaller than anything you might expect to cause an eruption, and also smaller than a bunch of previous earthquakes that didn’t do anything.

    Of course, you could still invoke weird, exotic, or handwavy mechanisms by which a run-of-the-mill earthquake could have triggered an eruption. But we found a much simpler explanation: Drilling mud.

    Boreholes – especially deep boreholes – are almost always filled with mud. This helps keep the hole from caving in, and prevents other bad things from happening when the drill encounters highly pressurized water or oil. Drillers must constantly monitor and adjust the consistency of the mud to ensure that the mud doesn’t escape into the surrounding rock, and conversely, that the fluid in the surrounding rock doesn’t get into the hole.

    The day before the eruption, water from the surrounding rock started flowing into the borehole. In the course of trying to control this, the drillers sealed the top of the hole – but they put a pressure meter inside. We calculated that the weight of the drilling mud, in addition to the pressure recorded at the top of the hole while it was sealed, was enough to muscle into the surrounding rock and force open fractures leading to an eruption.

    We don’t say that PT Lapindo Brantas (the company operating the exploration well) should be blamed for the eruption. In order to throw around concepts of blame or liability, we would need to establish not only that the drilling caused the eruption, but that the drilling practices used – the decisions about whether or not to install steel casing in the borehole, or the actions taken to control the well during the days before the eruption – were somehow deficient.

    Gentle readers, I ain’t touching that question with a ten-foot stand pipe.

    Maria Brumm

    Sumber: http://scienceblogs.com/greengabbro/2008/06/happy_birthday_lusi_the_drilli.php

  • The human face of Indonesia’s mud volcano disaster

    SIDOARJO, EAST JAVA, May  – Eight-month-old David should be a happy, healthy and active baby. He should be living in his family’s modest but comfortable home in Indonesia’s densely populated East Java. And along with his siblings and parents, he should have enough to eat. But how life should be and how life is for this family of environmental refugees are worlds apart.

    The home David’s parents worked so hard to establish is buried under a putrid ocean of hot sludge that now stretches eight square kilometres across East Java. A refugee camp is home these days.

    On Tuesday (EDS: May 29), it will be exactly one year since Indonesia’s “mud volcano” first erupted from the site of a gas exploration well, linked to one of Indonesia’s most powerful families, and part-owned by Australian company Santos.

    The seemingly unstoppable mud flow has spawned one of Indonesia’s biggest social and environmental disasters, with the thick brown sludge – 15 metres deep in parts – smothering nine villages, with thousands of houses, hectares of rice paddy fields, factories and mosques swallowed whole.

    Its also been a political nightmare for Indonesia’s president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose Public Welfare Minister and one of Indonesia’s richest men, Aburizal Bakrie, is linked to Lapindo, the operator of the Banjar Panji well that was being drilled 3km underground when the mud first broke through the earth.

    Police are investigating the company for negligence for allegedly not casing the well properly before drilling and have named 13 suspects, although it is unclear whether the case will ever make it to court.

    Efforts to stop the mud – from magicians casting spells and tossing sacrificial bulls heads into the seething mess, to plunging 200kg chains of concrete balls down into the crater to try to plug the hole – have all failed.

    Indeed, it shows no sign of slowing, with 160,000 cubic metres spewing from the crater every day – equivalent to 64 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

    Authorities are now focused on securing the cracked and leaking dirt embankments containing the mud, and trying to funnel it into a nearby river and eventually out to sea.

    At the heart of the mess, the stench of sulphur chokes the air and only the hum of heavy machinery breaks the depressing silence of houses standing abandoned and decaying alongside dead trees.

    Thousands of the 15,000 who lost their homes remain homeless, including 39-year-old Mujiati and her son David, who squat in a concrete shopfront within an large, vacant market centre, about a kilometre from the mud lakes.

    “My baby is eight months old now, but he has lived here since he was two months old,” said Mujiati from Renokenongo, one of nine villages now buried by the mud.

    “At that time, I didn’t have money to feed him so I had to use water from washing the rice to replace milk. The breast milk wouldn’t come so I didn’t know what else to give him. Sometimes I used steamed rice, boiled it with water and mixed it with banana to feed my baby. So now he is not that healthy, he lacks nutrition for development. He still cannot walk even though he is already eight months.”

    The pair are among almost 3,000 people sheltering at the Pasar Baru Porong refugee camp after refusing to accept the compensation offered by the well’s operator Lapindo – a cash payment worth 20 per cent of the value of their house and land.

    Mujiati has also lost her job after the factory she worked for was forced to close down. “Life here is hard. It has all been too sad and difficult for me,” she said. “We don’t eat regularly. We have already sold our bike for food. We have four kids, one wanted to continue his education but we cannot give him that. But I will remain here until they pay the compensation. Because of this mud, everything is destroyed. Whenever I see the mud, I feel something heavy in my chest. I lost my house because of that. It’s been swamped up to the roof.”

    But the mud is not only an unfolding social and environmental tragedy, it has also become dangerous. Thirteen people were killed in November – most of them drowned – when a gas pipeline beneath the expanse of mud cracked and exploded under pressure.

    Many fear a repeat of the accident, or worse, either from the partly-submerged electricity towers which dot the sinking landscape, or from the main railway line, which continues to run with mud lapping at the tracks. The land in the disaster area is sinking by about two to three centimetres a day, bending steel pipes, slowly sending houses crumbling and causing the levy banks halting the spread of the mudflow to crack and leak.

    “At the time of the explosion, I was so panicked,” Mujiati said. “I was running around, holding my baby, confused about which way to go. “I just kept running barefoot, forgetting everything else to get my baby out of that mess.”

    Authorities now appear to have switched their focus from trying to stop the flow, to containing it and funnelling it into the nearby Porong River, and eventually out to sea. A series of rusty pipes guide the mud into a holding pond where it is mixed with water to make it easier to pump, then funnelled into the nearby river.

    But Soffian Hadi, of the Sidoarjo Mud Mitigation Team (BPPLS) overseeing the disaster said only “very little” had so far been dumped into the river, with the pumps frequently overheating.

    He estimated about 0.3 cubic metres of mud was being pumped into the river per second, against 1.5 to 2 cubic metres flowing out of the crater. “I am embarrassed to tell you, because it is very small,” Hadi said.

    Surabaya Institute of Technology expert Teguh Hariyanto estimated the “mud volcano” could spill up to 700 million cubic metres of mud before it stops naturally. “So far only 20 million cubic metres has spewed out, even though it is reaching it’s ‘birthday’,” he said.

    Even the cause of the disaster is mired in controversy. Well operator Lapindo, with a 50 per cent stake, says the mudflow was triggered by a large earthquake hundreds of kilometres away.

    Indonesia’s Public Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie, whose family controls the company that owns Lapindo, said the disaster had nothing to do with the drilling. “The experts which cover this thing in Jakarta, all over the world, have already said that it is not because of the Lapindo drill, but because of the earthquakes,” he told foreign press in Jakarta earlier this year.

    The Bakrie group has reportedly already paid $US142 million ($A173 million) in compensation and mud containment efforts, and has been ordered by the president to pay a total 3.8 trillion rupiah ($A529.3 million).

    Australia’s Santos, which has an 18 per cent stake in the well and has set aside $A89 million for its share, has refused to comment publicly on the likely cause.

    The well’s third partner, Medco Energi, has openly accused Lapindo of gross negligence for not casing the well properly prior to drilling. It recently sold its 32 per cent share to a company backed by the Bakrie family group for the nominal sum of $US100 ($A122).

    “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Medco Energi chief executive officer Hilmi Panigoro told SBS Television recently. “We’ve seen blowouts, but I’ve never seen a blowout as big as this one. This is huge. We are talking about more than a million barrels a day of fluid coming out from the well bore and the area around it and that’s like production of oil from the whole of Indonesia.”

    Santos won’t say whether it too is looking to sell its stake, but did say it remains “very concerned” about the ongoing challenges posed by the disaster, and the impact on the local community and economy.

    “Santos continues to provide full and timely financial support to the response efforts, consistent with its 18 per cent share, and recognising the primacy of supporting those affected by the incident,” the company said in a statement. “An important priority remains ensuring that effective mud control measures are implemented so as to avoid further damage to property and infrastructure.”

    But back in the Porong refugee camp, locals are growing increasingly frustrated and angry. Last week, some of the residents went on a hunger strike over the food provided to them, which they claim is inadequate and rotten.

    Almost a third of those in the camp are infants or young children, who entertain themselves with homemade kites and board games. Twelve-year-old Desik said he longed to return home. “I don’t like living in this shelter,” he said. “It’s better at home. I don’t have to queue to take a shower, I don’t have to eat bad food. Everyday I see the mud and I feel sad because it drowned my house.”

    At the disaster site, one or two women have set up makeshift stalls selling water and cigarettes to remedial workers. “My house is falling down, all the walls are cracked,” said Fatimah, 46. “I make a living here, because if I don’t do anything I am going to be stressed. I don’t go to the shelter because I am staying with my children. If I lived in the shelter, I would have to get up at four in the morning to shower, if not, I cannot shower because there will be a long queue already. It’s sad whenever I think about my house, but I am hoping to get the 20 per cent compensation. But it hasn’t come yet. I don’t mind that they are only giving 20 per cent as long as they give it soon.”

    Fatimah said she was forced to flee her tiny shop recently when one of the dirt embankments built to contain the mud flow began to leak. “I just grabbed the money in the drawer and took the cigarettes and went quick,” she said. “Just like at the time of explosion, I ran as fast as I could.”

    But ultimately there can be no running away for most of the people worst affected by the disaster. Many have nothing left and until the compensation comes, they have only one choice. To stay.

    Karen Michelmore and Olivia Rondonuwu

    © AAP News Wire

  • Santos urges Indonesian court to dismiss “mud volcano” civil case

    JAKARTA, May 29 AAP – Australian company Santos today urged an Indonesian court to dismiss a civil case launched over the so-called “mud volcano” which is devastating heavily populated East Java.

    It is one year today since huge quantities of mud started to ooze from the site of a gas exploration well, part-owned by Santos, being drilled deep underground at Sidoarjo.

    All efforts to stop the mudflow have failed, and the grey-brown sludge has smothered nine villages, schools, mosques, factories and rice paddy fields across an eight square kilometre area.

    About 160,000 cubic metres of mud continues to seep out of the crater every day. Protesters today demonstrated outside the South Jakarta District Court, where environmental NGO Walhi has launched civil action against 12 defendants including Santos, which has an 18 per cent stake in the Banjar Panji exploration well.

    The protesters threw mud from the disaster outside the court, sang and waved banners reading: “One Year Lapindo Mud, Happy Birthday”, before filing into the packed courtroom for the hearing.

    Others named in the lawsuit, include Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, two cabinet ministers, Santos’ partners in the project Lapindo Brantas and PT Medco Energi, and the East Java and Sidoarjo governments.

    Walhi lawyer Taufik Basari accused those involved of breaching environmental and civil laws, and asked the judge to order the parties to pay compensation for the “great impact on the environment”.

    It alleged that the mudflow had been “ignited by the activities” of Lapindo, the well operator. “The hot mud material came out from points at or around the location of drilling,” Walhi documents filed with the court said.

    “The mudflow has created hugely negative environmental damage, and a damaging impact on society, especially ecologically, economically, socially and psychologically, and the loss is unlimited.”

    It called on the court to impose a moratorium on drilling in the Brantas exploration block, and order those involved to “apologise to the Indonesian people”. It said Santos was also responsible for the damage to the environment because of its “participating interest agreement” with Lapindo.

    Lapindo attempted to have the charges dismissed, arguing that Walhi did not have the legal authority to mount such a lawsuit and was not a properly formed legal entity. “Because its not a legal body, the charges don’t have legal standing,” Lapindo lawyer Akhmad Muthosim said.

    Santos lawyer Yulianto also called on the court to dismiss the charges against Santos, saying the Indonesian government had already ordered compensation be paid.

    He said the company had not violated any laws or been negligent. “The charges are failed and not needed,” he said. The hearing is due to resume next week.

    Karen Michelmore

    © AAP News Wire

  • Walhi Bali: KLH Lecehkan Korban Lapindo

    Denpasar, Wahana Lingkungan Hidup (WALHI) Bali menuding Kementrian Lingkungan Hidup (KLH) telah melakukan pelecehan terhadap korban Lapindo Sidoarjo. Dimana KLH telah memberikan anugerah biru plus kepada Lapindo Brantas Incorporation.

    Padahal menurut Walhi, Lapindo Brantas merupakan perusahaan hitam perusak lingkungan. Tudingan tersebut disampaikan Walhi Bali ketika melakukan aksi teatrikal bersama Aliansi Peduli Korban Lapindo (APKL) di Jl. Dewi Sartika, Denpasar, Jumat (8/8).

    Direktur Walhi Daerah Bali, Agung Wardana menyatakan, KLH tidak saja melakukan pelecehan terhadap masyarakat korban lumpur Lapindo akan tetapi pemerintah terutama KLH tidak mempunyai kepekaan sosial terhadap penderitaan para korban Lapindo.

    Walhi juga menuding, Lapindo Brantas juga ikut melakukan pelecehan terhadap korban lumpur Lapindo dimana pada saat korban Lapindo mengalami penderitaan, justru keluarga Bakrie menggelar pesta pernikahan dengan menghabiskan dana puluhan milyar rupiah.

    “Di tengah penderitaan korban, ternyata keluarga Bakrie lebih memilih untuk menghabiskan dananya hingga puluhan milyar rupiah untuk berpesta daripada memenuhi tanggung jawabnya kepada korban. Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa mereka tidak punya sense of crisis,” ujar Agung Wardana.

    Sementara dalam aksi teatrikalnya, Aliansi Peduli Korban Lapindo membawa duplikat kue pernikahan yang terbuat dari triplek setinggi 1,2 meter. Kue pernikahan tersebut dikelilingi oleh 5 orang aktivis yang badannya dilumuri oleh lumpur dan lehernya diikat dengan tali. Hal ini disimbolkan sebagai pernikahan yang dilaksanakan di atas penderitaan korban lapindo. (Mlt)

    © BeritaBali.com

  • Korban Lapindo dan Mandulnya Negara

    Korban lumpur lapindo yang di dalam peta area terdampak pada 22 Maret 2007 kini tengah resah. Kurang lebih 1000 an orang belum menerima uang muka 20 persen. Sisanya sebesar 11 ribu kepala keluarga cemas menuggu ketidakjelasan pembayaran 80 persen oleh PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya (MLJ).

    Hari Selasa, 5 Agustus 2008 yang lalu, kami bersama dengan ribuan korban lumpur melakukan aksi untuk meminta komitmen pemerintah dan Badan Penanggulangan Lumpur Sidoarjo (BPLS) untuk menegakkan aturan hukum yang ada. Aturan hukum itu menyangkut pembayaran sisa 80 persen yang harus dilakukan oleh PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya. Namun, hasil pertemuan dengan Bupati Sidoarjo, BPLS, dan BPN tak membuah hasil yang menggembirakan. Bupati, BPN, dan BPLS tak secara kongkrit menegakkan aturan itu.

    Sesuai dengan mekanisme hukum yang ada, pada tanggal 2 Mei 2007, menteri sosial selaku wakil ketua dewan pengarah BPLS, bersama dengan Ketua BPLS, Badan Pertanahan Nasional (BPN), Ketua DPRD Sidoarjo, Vice Presiden PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya, dan perwakilan warga mengadakan rapat bersama. Salah satu hasilnya disepakati bahwa tanah tanah warga yang bukti kepemilikannya dapat di akte jual belikan. Sehingga secara otomatis posisinya setara dengan tanah tanah warga yang bersertifikat.

    Pertemuan ini tentu sangat menggembirakan warga. Harapan besar bahwa tanah tanah warga mendapatkan payung hukum dalam hal pembayaran sisa aset mereka sebesar 80 persen. Apalagi pada tanggal 24 Maret 2007, Badan Pertanahan Nasional membuat surat perintah kepada Badan Pertanahan Kabupaten Sidoarjo mengenai petunjuk pelaksanaan penyelesaian masalah lumpur Sidoarjo. Isi pokok surat itu adalah tanah tanah warga yang bukti kepemilikannya hanya letter c, pethok d dan sk gogol bisa dilakukan penerbitan akte jual beli. Bahkan disaat PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya melakukan pelunasan pembayaran 80 persen, BPN dapat menerbitkan Sertifikat Hak Guna Bangunan (SHGB).

    Waktu terus berlalu, setahun kemudian, warga telah waktunya mendapatkan sisa pembayaran 80 persen. Sebagian besar warga berharap, mereka dapat segera membeli rumah, karena selama ini mereka hidup dalam rumah kontrakan. Bahkan sebagian diantaranya telah membeli rumah dengan status hutang. Harapannya, hutang itu dapat segera terlunasi disaat mereka mendapatkan pembayaran uang sisanya sebesar 80 persen.

    Alangkah terkejutnya ketika harapan itu coba dirubah. PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya, bersama dengan Ketua Gabungan Korban Lumpur Lapindo (GKLL) dan Emha Ainun Najib membuat nota kesepahaman bahwa sisa pembayaran 80 persen akan dibayarkan dalam bentuk cash and resettlement (C n R). Pola C n R mekanismenya berupa tanah warga ditukar guling satu banding satu. Sedangkan rumah rumah warga yang telah tenggelam PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya sanggup membayarnya sesuai dengan harga saat warga menerima uang muka 20 persen, yakni sebesar 1,5 juta per meternya.

    Bahkan PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya menyatakan tidak bersedia membayar secara tunai (cash) bagi tanah tanah warga yang bukti kepemilikannya hanya letter c, pethok d dan sk gogol. Yang lebih konyol dan memuakkan, beberapa makelar bergentayangan setiap malam. Mereka mengumpulkan warga yang sangat awam mengenai praktik hukum dan prosedur pengurusan aset aset mereka yang telah tenggelam. Para makelar tersebut mengancam kepada warga, aset mereka yang 80 persen tidak akan diuruskan bahkan tidak akan di bayar, jika tidak segera mengumpulkan berkas berkas mereka kepada para makelar.

    Modusnya, para makelar mengumpukan warga pada malam hari selepas sholat isya’. Pada pertemuan itulah warga dibuat cemas, dan takut. Sehingga pada malam hari itu juga warga diminta mengumpulkan berkas untuk mengurus pembayaran sisa 80 persen dalam bentuk C n R.

    Menghadapi kenyataan yang amburadul seperti itu, beberapa warga yang melek secara politik dan hukum menginisiasi dibentuknya Geppres (Gerakan Pendukung Peraturan Presiden) yang menutut sisa pembayaran 80 persen dalam bentuk tunai (cash), baik tanah maupun bangunan. Mereka menolak skema C n R yang dibuat oleh PT MLJ dan GKLL.

    Jika mekanisme C  n R dilakukan maka warga akan mengalami beberapa kerugian:

    1. Warga menderita kerugian tanah yang menjadi aset miliknya. Sebab jika PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya membayar tanah tersebut secara tunai, harganya satu juta per meter perseginya. Sedangkan dengan sisten C n R, PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya mengganti tanah warga dengan tanah, yang pengadaannya tanahnya per meter perseginya paling mahal 300 ribu per meter perseginya.
    2. Lokasinya tanah tempat tukar guling relatif jauh dengan mata pencaharian warga, yang rata rata menjadi buruh pabrik, buruh tambak, dan sektor informal lainnya di sekitar Porong dan Tanggulangin.
    3. Pembayaran 80 persen secara tunai yang semestinya dapat digunakan untuk beli rumah dan modal usaha, dengan model C n R, maka uang tunai yang dimiliki warga semakin berkurang, sebab hanya mendapatkan pembayaran dari rumah mereka yang tenggelam saja.
    4. Jika warga terpaksa harus membangun rumah ditanah hasil relokasi satu banding satu, mereka akan tinggal di dalam komplek perumahan. Suasana hidup didalam perumahan secara kultural dan sosial jelas akan sangat berbeda dengan suasana hidup di kampung pendesaan. Biaya sosial hidup diperumahan akan lebih mahal, sebab air harus beli lewat PDAM atau membeli genset sedotan air, serta biaya biaya lainya, layaknya hidup di dalam perumahan.

    Menghadapi situasi ini, maka Geppres menginginkan agar komitmen pembayaran 80 persen harus tetap dalam bentuk uang tunai. Namun perjuangan ini masih menghadapi jalan buntu, ketika secara sepihak PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya tidak bersedia membayar tanah tanah yang bukti kepemilikannya hanya pethok d, letter c, maupun sk gogol. Menghadapi situasi seperti ini, BPN, BPLS, dan Bupati cenderung acuh. Tak ada konsekuensi paksa apapun yang ditujukan kepada PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya dari pemerintah atas sikap itu. Negara telah dikalahkan oleh praktik dagang. Sejarah VOC terulang kembali dalam sejarah Indonesia modern. Mana janji dan pernyataanmu Pak Presiden.

    ”Negara tidak boleh dikalahkan, hukum harus ditegakkan”.

  • Saat Menteri KLH dibutakan oleh Lapindo

    Pada 31 Juli 2008 lalu, KLH memberikan predikat biru plus pada Lapindo Brantas Inc. Blue company merupakan predikat kepada perusahaan yang telah cukup baik melaksanakan kewajibannya terhadap lingkungan. Sejak dibebankan tanggung jawab terhadap lingkungan dan sosial bagi perusahaan tambang oleh Pasal 74 Undang-undang Nomor 40 tahun 2007 tentang Perusahaan Terbatas, perusahaan-perusahaan yang bergerak di industri mining, oil and gasoline berlomba-lomba menggelar kegiatan-kegiatan amal yang diekspos oleh media, sementara perusakan lingkungan oleh perusahaan tersebut tak lagi menjadi persoalan besar di bangsa ini. Eco-labeling le[ada Lapindo tersebut menunjukkan keberpihakan Pemerintah RI terutama Kementrian KLH terhadap korporasi pelaku kejahatan lingkungan dan kemanusiaan.

    Undang-undang Perseroan Terbatas sebenarnya masih absurd dalam mengemas Corporate Environmental and Social Responsibility. Sejauh apa suatu perusahaan dinilai menghormati lingkungan hidup belum ada stadarisasinya. Meskipun absurd, sesuatu yang mutlak terlihat jelas bahwa suatu perusahaan tidak comply terhadap lingkungan hidup adalah jika aktivitas perusahaan itu telah jelas mengakibatkan pencemaran dan perusakan lingkungan hidup. Terlebih bila disambungkan dengan tiga elemen CSR  yang dikenal di dunia internasioanl yaitu people, planet, profit (masyarakat, planet, dan keuntungan). Suatu perusahaan dalam mencari keuntungan wajib memperhatikan kesejahteraan masyarakat dan keberlangsungan planet ini.

    Di tengah kerancuan indikator perusahaan comply atau tidak terhadap lingkungan hidup, pemerintah dapat sewenang-wenang menyematkan predikat hijau dan biru terhadap perusahaan yang nyata-nyata mengakibatkan ecocide, seperti halnya yang diterima Lapindo. Menurut penemuan BPK-RI dan Putusan Pengadilan Negeri Jakarta Pusat, Lapindo terbukti lalai dalam pengeboran hingga menyebabkan menyemburnya Lumpur Panas yang mengandung gas mudah terbakar di sumur Banjar Panji-1 yang kini telah merendam habis 12 desa di Sidoarjo. Semburan Lumpur ini mengakibatkan sedikitnya 60 ribu orang mengungsi karena ekosistemnya dimusnahkan. Menurut penelitian berapa ahli, Lumpur ini mengandung logam berat seperti Cadmium, Chromium, Arsen, dan Merkuri yang kadarnya diatas baku mutu yang dipersyaratkan. Tidak hnya itu, Lumpur ini juga mengandung mikrobiologi yang bersifat patogen seperti coliform, salmonella, dan staphylococcus aureus.

    Coliform ini adalah bakteri yang banyak ditemui di feses binatang berdarah panas seperti reptilia. Coliform tidak menyebabkan penyakit tapi adanya coliform ini menjadi indicator adanya organisme yang membawa penyakit atau patogen. Sedangkan Salmonella adalah mikrobiologi yang menyebabkan typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, dan foodborne illness/food poisoning. Staphylococcus aureus, adalah mikrobiologi yang menyebabkan penyakit golden step yang dapat mengakibatkan radang selaput otak (meningitis), Pneumonia, toxic shock syndrome (TSS) dan septicemia.

    Lebih buruk lagi, akhir-akhir ini baru diketahui bahwa lumpur ini mengandung Polyciclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) 2000 kali ambang batas normal. PAH ini adalah senyawa kimia yang terbentuk proses pembakaran tidak sempurna dari bahan bakar fosil di areal pengeboran. PAH merupakan senyawa yang berbahaya karena ia selain karsinogenik dan mutagenik, ia juga teratogenik. Ia tidak langsung menyebakan tumor atau kangker secara lansung, namun PAH akan berubah menjadi senyawa alkylating dihydrodiol epoxides yang sangat reaktif dan berpotensi tinggi akan resiko tumor dan kangker. Mengerikannya, PAH dapat berpindah dari media apapun. Tidak hanya dari udara yang dihirup, namun dari pori-pori kulit dan lubang tubuh. Menginjak tanah yang terkontaminasi PAH (akibat terkena udara yang mengandung PAH), serta mengkonsumsi makanan dan minuman yang terkontaminasi PAH dapat mengakibatkan PAH masuk ke tubuh manusia.

    Dampak dari PAH di tubuh manusia ini baru dapat terlihat setelah PAH terakumulasi dalam tubuh, antara lain dapat menyebabkan kangker permasalahan reproduksi, dan membahayakan organ dalam dan kulit. Di Pasar Porong, beberapa orang telah teridentifikasi memiliki benjolan-benjolan di sekitar leher, payudara dan punggung. Menurut data di RSUD Sidoarjo, beberapa korban telah meninggal dunia dan teridentifikasi flek di paru-paru mereka, bahkan di korban yang diketahui selama hidupnya bukan perokok aktif. Saat ini masih ada ratusan ribu warga Sidoarjo yang menghirup udara yang terkontaminasi dan berbau busuk, mengkonsumsi air yang terkontaminasi PAH, hidup tanpa peringatan dari perusahaan.

    Setelah kerusakan lingkungan dan sosial akut yang ditimbulkan oleh perusahaan ini, penyematan predikat biru kepada Lapindo merupakan bentuk kongkret pemerintah menutup mata atas perbuatan Lapindo. Predikat biru ini merupakan bukti adanya konspirasi antara lapindo dengan pemerintah dan menempatkan posisinya diametral dengan rakyat. Penyematan ini dikemas dalam sebuah perhelatan mewah yang memakan dana sekitar 3 milyar rupiah. Tidak ada transparansi dalam penentuan indikator menghormati lingkungan, apalagi adanya partisipasi masyarakat sekitar areal aktivitas perusahaan untuk memberikan penilaian apakah perusahaan itu comply terhadap lingkungan dan sosial atau tidak.

    Uang triliunan yang telah dikeluarkan oleh Lapindo untuk upaya menanggulangi dampak semburan (yang pada kenyataannya tidak tuntas), tidak bisa dikategorikan sebagai bentuk CSR, karena uang tersebut adalah kewajiban lapindo yang lahir akibat perbuatannya merusak lingkungan. Berbeda dengan konsep awal CSR yang merupakan filatropi korporasi atau karitatif. Uang tersebut bukanlah bantuan bencana alam seperti halnya banyak bantuan perusahaan untuk korban gempa, namun merupakan kewajiban perusahaan karena telah memusnahkan suatu ekosistem tanpa ampun.

    Sangat tidak tepat adanya apabila pemerintah menyematkan predikat biru plus kepada lapindo yang tidak hanya melakukan pemusnahkan ekosistem (ecocide), namun juga tidak bertanggung jawab atas restitusinya, mengingat sebagian besar dana penanggulangannya dibebankan kepada APBN. Pemerintah yang harusnya melindungi rakyat karena posisi timpang antara korporasi dan rakyat, justru menambah kekuatan gigantika korporasi. Begitulah apabila kehormatan menteri KLH telah dibeli dengan uang panas Lapindo.

    DINA SAVALUNA

  • Revisi Perpres Lapindo Tak Sentuh Substansi

    JAKARTA – Revisi Peraturan Presiden (Perpres) No 14/2007 tentang Badan Penanggulangan Lumpur Sidoarjo (BPLS) dinilai tidak menyentuh substansi. Seharusnya, revisi lebih menyentuh hal prinsip.

    ”Seharusnya, tak ada lagi diskriminasi antar desa terdampak dan tidak,” ujar Syafruddin Ngulma Simeulue, komisioner Komnas HAM, kepada koran ini kemarin (29/6). Pembedaan tersebut tidak perlu karena masyarakat di sekitar semburan merasakan dampak yang sama.

    Seperti diwartakan, pemerintah telah merampungkan revisi Perpres 14/2007. Dalam perpres itu, tiga desa, yakni Besuki, Pejarakan, dan Kedungcangkring, Kecamatan Jabon, Sidoarjo, akan dimasukkan dalam peta terdampak. Awal Februari lalu, tiga desa itu terkena dampak bencana tanggul jebol. Namun, mereka tidak masuk dalam peta terdampak. Akibatnya, mereka tidak mendapatkan ganti rugi dari PT Lapindo Brantas.

    Warga tiga desa itu lantas menuntut wilayahnya dimasukkan ke peta terdampak. Permintaan itu disetujui dengan anggaran dari APBNP yang disetujui pada 10 April 2008. Anggaran tersebut belum bisa cair selagi payung hukumnya tidak ada. Karena itu, warga mendesak revisi perpres segera dilakukan supaya dana bisa dicairkan.

    Syafruddin menjelaskan, selain tidak perlu pembedaan daerah terdampak dan tidak terdampak, revisi seharusnya mengatur ganti rugi dan biaya pemulihan bagi warga. ”Itu sebenarnya lebih substansial,” terang mantan direktur Walhi Jatim itu.

    Terkait dengan investigasi terhadap kejanggalan dalam semburan lumpur yang sedang ditangani komnas, Syafruddin menjelaskan, pihaknya kini memasuki tahap akhir penyelesaian laporan. Namun, komnas masih membutuhkan beberapa keterangan dari pihak terkait. ”Salah satunya menteri lingkungan hidup. Kami masih atur jadwalnya,” katanya.

    Dia menargetkan, akhir Juli mendatang laporan dan rekomendasi bisa rampung. ”Nanti diputuskan di (rapat) paripurna sebelum kami publikasikan,” terangnya. (fal/oki)

    © Jawa Pos