Finally, the anguish and wait are over for seven local government units in Negros Oriental to have a common sanitary landfill after a series of consultation meetings by their respective local chief executives, planning officers, environmental management officers together with representatives from the Department of Environment & Natural Resources.
In a meeting held Wednesday, Valencia Mayor Edgar Teves offered to host the sanitary landfill in a six to eight hectare lot in barangay Malaunay.
To be called the Dumaguete City Sanitary Landfill, Dumaguete Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo said the City will shoulder the cost in the acquisition of the lot, the construction of which will be undertaken by a private contractor who will receive the tipping fee from the seven LGUs through a memorandum of agreement.
Mayor Teves said that for Valencia as host municipality, the consensus is for them to pay half of the tipping fee per metric ton of garbage delivered to the SLF aside from the minimum supervision over the facility.
The Mines and Geosciences Bureau of DENR recommended the area with only three or four residential houses in the area.
Mayor Teves said he would bring the matter to the residents for their approval as part of the process in acquiring social acceptability of the project.
The commitment of the Mayors and planning officers present in today’s meeting is to generate three to four metric tons of garbage each from Zamboanguita, Dauin, Bacong, Valencia, and San Jose, while Sibulan has a daily garbage output of 15 metric tons more or less and Dumaguete has 70 to 80 metric tons of garbage daily.
Bacong Vice Mayor Lenin Alviola had earlier stressed the choice for barangay Timbao in his municipality as the venue of the SLF is not possible because under the comprehensive land use plan of the municipality it is declared as an agricultural area and has been considered as the food basket of the province aside from Canlaon City supplying vegetables and fruits in the local markets.
Alviola exclaimed Mayor Remollo’s insistence is a blessing in disguise, lest, they be charged before the Ombudsman for non-compliance of RA 9003.
According to Remollo, this is part of a desperation move of the LGUs concerned that he baptized as “the group of seven” after being pressured by law to establish their respective sanitary landfills.
It’s not that easy, the mayor pointed out, after being warned and issued with notices of violations due to financial constraints among LGUs.
Remollo said the “group of seven” is lucky Mayor Teves of Valencia has offered to host the SLF, especially that of the three areas being considered, only the 6 to 8 hectare lot in Malaunay had passed the standards of the MGB.
The city mayor showed estimates that if the city buys the lot at P20 million plus P30 million construction cost, in less than three years it will see a return of its investments, unlike when it will pay the tipping fee of P700 per metric ton of garbage, which is approximately P20 million in one year.
Present during the meeting were Dauin Mayor Neil Credo, Bacong Vice Mayor Lenin Alviola, Valencia Mayor Teves, the Zamboanguita Planning Officer, Sibulan Councilor Antonio Renacia, San Jose Mayor Melnick Logronio, and Dumaguete Mayor Remollo, along with their respective planning and environment officers.
Meanwhile, starting May 16, unsegregated garbage in rural barangays of Dumaguete will not be collected by the city’s garbage trucks in line with the campaign to enforce the segregation-at-source provision of an existing law.
Personnel from the ENRO are going around the rural and urban barangays especially during regular sessions to reiterate provisions of RA 9003 otherwise known as the Solid Waste Ecological Act of 2000 as well as provisions of the Local Government Code that it is the duty of the punong barangay and barangay officials to enforce environmental laws, in the wake of a bigger challenge right now for the city to look for a place where a sanitary land fill can be established.
Last Tuesday afternoon, ENRO officers, namely, Frannie Pabayos, Ophero Alabado and Norley Dorio told barangay officials in Bajumpandan during their regular session that segregation-at-source can mitigate the overflowing garbage situation right now in Barangay Candau-ay while the city in collaboration with other local government units from as far as Zamboanguita up to Amlan are pooling their resources together for the establishment of a common SLF after receipt of notices with fines.
The group informed the barangay council only non-biodegradable garbage will be collected in rural barangays enjoining them to provide for compost pits in their barangays for biodegradables.
But in the absence of vacant spaces in at least nine low cost housing sites, residents in Habitat 1 to Habitat 4, Core Shelter, Caritas 1 and Caritas 2, I-Home and GK-2, all in Bajumpandan, are in a quandary as to where to put their biodegradable garbage due to limited spaces.
Village chief Orlando Enquig had asked for one month within which to disseminate the information to presidents of nine housing sites and five puroks before the segregation at source can be implemented.
In the absence of vacant spaces for compost pits, Enquig expressed fears the two creeks that are situated in the barangay will become dumping grounds for garbage from the housing sites, if unsegregated garbage are not collected.
Bajumpandan has a budget for the construction of a Material Recovery Facility but the proposed site near the city slaughterhouse was discouraged and so the project is pending.
Garcia said nothing is impossible with everybody working in one direction that is to clean our surroundings to attain an ecologically balanced and peaceful environment.
To make it more fun, the ENRO has launched the search for the cleanest and greenest barangay, including the cleanest coastal and inland bodies of water in the face of a lot of concerns, from coastal, urban forestry, illegal quarrying, among others.
Meanwhile, reports have it, fish gills and fish intestines and other wastes from Building 1 of the city’s public market are being thrown to the sea daily instead of bringing them to the dumpsite.
In paying tribute to the barangay officials, Councilor Manny Arbon, chairman of the committee on environment in the city council had earlier said that looking at the local government code, barangay officials had a lot of responsibilities than the policy makers, being the frontliners, from policy making to quasi judicial to implementing the laws.
In short, barangays officials have functions that the city legislators do not have.
Arbon said the problem faced by the city right now is very challenging being known as a city that is clean. (Juancho Gallarde)
