All’s Well That Ends Well

(9/2/2011)

The Bali provincial government is being urged to undertake a detailed survey of water wells bored by local businesses and hotels in Bali. The need for the new survey, according to Beritabali.com, is motivated by the widely held assumption that many Bali business are lying to the government on the actual existence of local wells and the amount of ground water consumed.

The director of the Winsu Foundation, Made Suarnatha, told the press that an careful examination of the star status of a hotel or the type of business occupying a specific location should make it impossible for these businesses to misrepresent to the government their actual water consumption from concealed well holes.

“We certainly will know that a ‘melati class’ hotel with so many rooms, must be using a set amount of water; five-star hotels are using so much – by using this method we can extrapolate the amount of water consumption. This calculation is what’s missing, so that a hotel reports if has only one well when in fact it has three hidden wells. Through  extrapolations such as these  we will know if there are hidden wells,” explained Suarnatha.

Suarnatha also characterized that the current policy of the government of Bali to increase the tax paid for ground water use by 1,000% as very difficult to implement. Such a policy, he believes, will cause hotels and companies to undertake even greater efforts to conceal ground water wells on their properties.