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To detect water quality, PT Karya Tanah Subur (KTS) initiated monitoring cages or fish ponds specially made by the Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) team of PT KTS with the aim of early detection of water quality, especially from the production of palm oil products. While the activities of residents along the riverbank have become an inseparable part of PT KTS, this river is alongside an artificial drainage ditch located behind the PT KTS Factory, which flows directly into the Bubon River.
The Bubon River is highly utilized by the surrounding community, especially the people of Blang Sibeutong Village and Cot Lada Village in West Aceh, which are PT KTS ring 1 villages, as a source of clean water needs, and river transportation routes, which are now for the livelihoods of the surrounding community, such as fishing, and water hyacinth cultivation.
In the artificial ditch that flows directly into the Bubon River, there is a square measuring approximately 2 meters x 3 meters, installed directly at the mouth of the water flowing in the PT KTS block ditch. They call the square with the monitoring cage. “The construction of these cages is a form of PT KTS’s responsibility to the surrounding community, especially the ring 1 village which is directly flowed by the Bubon River.
Apart from being a water quality detector, this cage was made to prevent the spillages of factory processing that may potentially flow directly into the river, ‘said the Assistant Safety, Health and Environment PT KTS, Eka Saksono, Thursday (5/16/2024). This condition has been continuously monitored every morning and evening so that if the biological oxygen demand (BOD) and PH exceed the quality standards that affect water quality, the fish in this cage will automatically die, so it is named the monitoring cage.
This beach cage has been made since 2019, at the beginning of the construction there were two cages, but currently, one cage is in the process of being repaired, each of which has a capacity of around 500 medium-sized fish. One cage is filled with tilapia, the other with pomfret. Meanwhile, Community Development Area Manager Aceh, Riduan Manik, explained that monitoring cages has had great benefits to KTS, since 5 years of installation, there have never been found dead fish due to poor water quality or pollution from the factory. “All the fish are growing well, in fact, another benefit is that we harvest the fish that have matured, and replace them with new fish fry, following the company’s commitment to the principle of clean production,” Riduan concluded.
The principle of clean production is through the reutilization of waste according to the 5R concept (reduce, reuse, recycle, refine and retrieve to energy), to not only carry out waste management and processing but also continue to strive to reduce waste generated from plantation and palm oil mill operations. Waste management and utilization are carried out independently by the company to support the creation of environmental sustainability by considering ecological, economic and acceptable feasibility to the community following applicable laws and regulations.
Furthermore, the community has experienced other benefits with the existence of this monitoring cage, such as when the fish in the cage have matured, they are harvested directly by the KTS team. but often these fish are released into the Bubon River to be utilized directly by the community of PT KTS Ring 1 village. Thousands of fish are released wild in the river area so that they can be utilized by people who use the river for those who look for fish to eat, of course, it is beneficial for the local community.
Source: Tribun News
