Riau administration’s Environment Agency (BLH) is drawing up a budget of Rp 6 billion (US$604,536) to buy three units of air quality monitoring equipment to anticipate the spread of acute respiratory infections in the province, which suffers haze pollution from forest fires almost every year.
“It is expected that the equipment will be realized this year,” BLH head Kasiarudin told journalists in Pekanbaru, on Sunday.
He said the equipment, which could accurately detect Air Pollution Standard Index (ISPU) well below guideline concentrations would be installed in several areas in Siak regency.
“It costs more than Rp 2 billion per unit, so in total we need more than Rp 6 billion,” said Kasiarudin as quoted by Antara news agency.
Currently, Riau is only operating three ISPU facilities belonging to the provincial administration, which are all installed in Pekanbaru.
Kasiarudin said in almost all regencies and municipalities in Riau, the changes in air quality could not be properly detected due to the absence of the air quality measurement equipment.
He said that in several areas — such as Dumai City, Bengkalis, the Minas district of Siak and the Rumbai district in Pekanbaru — the air quality detection process was still carried out using the ISPU facilities belonging to Chevron’s local subsidiary Chevron Pacific Indonesia (CPI).
In the recent haze disaster in Riau, the pollutant standard’s index (PSI) in Dumai and Bengkalis once rose to 831. Under normal conditions, the PSI range is between zero and 50; above 300 is considered hazardous. The air pollutant level was measured by the PSI equipment belonging to CPI.
