reported that domestic wastewater as the major river polluter. With a growing population and higher rate urbanization, domestic wastewater will contribute more to the overall water pollution in the country, even in the rural areas where the use of chemical detergents is increasing rapidly. Both sources of pollution do not only deplete surface water quality, but also the groundwater. The chemical compounds from both industrial and domestic waste can sneak through the soil and when the groundwater is relatively shallow, these contaminants will mix with the clean water. Unless the government regulates domestic wastewater management and ensures a strong law enforcement for industrial waste, the risk of pollution will remain. In addition, information dissemination related to water pollution, albeit required by law, is limited which makes communities vulnerable to the impacts of water pollution. Air pollution The 1997 Indonesian forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra caused the 1997 Southeast Asian haze. It was a large-scale air quality disaster. The total costs are estimated at US$9 billion to health care, air travel and business. In 2013, the air quality in Singapore sank to its lowest in 15 years due to smoke from Sumatran fires. Singapore urged Indonesia to do more to prevent illegal burning. Deforestation and agricultural pollution A different, but related, set of environmental pressures arose in the 1970s and 1980s among the rice-growing peasants living in the plains and valleys. Rising population densities and the consequent demand for arable land gave rise to serious soil erosion, deforestation due to the need for firewood, and depletion of soil nutrients. Runoff from pesticides polluted water supplies in some areas and poisoned fish ponds. Although national and local governments appeared to be aware of the problem, the need to balance environmental protection with pressing demands of a hungry population and an electorate eager for economic growth did not diminish. Major problems faced the mountainous interior regions of Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Sumatra. These problems included deforestation, soil erosion, massive forest fires, and even desertification resulting from intensive commercial logging—all these threatened to create environmental disasters. In 1983 some 30,000 km2 of prime tropical forest worth at least US$10 billion were destroyed in a fire in Kalimantan Timur Province. The disastrous scale of this fire was made possible by the piles of dead wood left behind by the timber industry. Even discounting the calamitous effects of the fire, in the mid-1980s Indonesia's deforestation rate