JAKARTA: Dozens of residents in Nongsa district, Batam, Riau Islands blocked access to Nongsa Digital Park on Monday (Oct 5), protesting water shortages they say have left their neighbourhoods without piped supplies for months while data centre developments continue to expand.
The road blockade was the latest in a series of protests over the past two months, as residents in the district have grown increasingly frustrated with worsening access to clean water.
“Since construction of the data centre began, we have been severely affected by water shortage. Our water supply has been completely cut off for three to six months,” protester Andi Lalang told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
Police and military personnel were deployed around Nongsa Digital Park during the protest and directed vehicles seeking to enter the area to use alternative routes.
Protesters agreed to disperse after a BP Batam official promised to restore piped water supplies within two days and ordered six water tanker trucks to deliver water to affected neighbourhoods as a temporary measure.
As of Wednesday, water supplies had been restored to around 53 per cent of the affected areas, but the partial restoration had done little to ease residents’ frustration.
“If this issue is not resolved soon and the disruption happens again, we will stage further protests,” Nongsa resident Juliardi Adinda told the Post on Wednesday.
Denny Tondano, BP Batama’s deputy head of business development, denied allegations that data centreperations were responsible for the water shortages affecting residents in Nongsa. He attributed the shortages to the ongoing El Nin weather phenomenon which triggered a prolonged dry season across the country.
Denny said data centreand residential areas in Nongsa rely on separate water supplies.
Data centrein the Nongsa Digital Park receive water from the Duriangkang Reservoir through a dedicated pipeline built by BP Batam, while residential neighborhoods are supplied by the Nongsa Reservoir, whose water levels have fallen sharply during the prolonged dry season.
“Data centre operations are not responsible for the community’s water crisis. Large data centres such as Equator are not yet operating at full capacity, while other data centres have installed rainwater ponds and are preparing their own seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) facilities to meet their water needs,” Denny said.
Denny said six of Batam’s reservoirs supplying raw water were operating normally, while Nongsa Reservoir was the only one experiencing a significant drop in water flows. Nara Dewa, human resources director at Nongsa Digital Park, said that the Monday protest had disrupted activity in the area and prompted questions from international tenants.
“Our tenants have started asking what is happening and why they are being caught up in the situation. We are doing our best to explain the circumstances transparently, although views of the protest will naturally differ from one person to another,” Nara said on Monday.
Nara also rejected claims that data center operations were responsible for the water shortage in Nongsa.
“At the same time, we urge the government to ensure that its commitments to residents are fulfilled and that their water needs are met,” he said.
Data centres can require substantial amounts of water, particularly for cooling servers. Large-scale facilities can consume as much as five million gallons a day, equivalent to the daily water needs of a city of 10,000 to 50,000 people.
Currently there are at least 16 hyperscale data centre projects in the pipeline across Batam, including in Kabil Industrial Estate, Nongsa, Tembesi Industrial Estate and Batam Center.
BP Batam expected the data centres to be fully operational by 2027-2028 and had taken steps to ensure the city would have sufficient water and electricity supplies to support their operations. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
