CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Catholic religious leaders have expressed concern over a report of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) indicating that the government-approved proposed landfill in Obando, Bulacan is environmentally risky.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said local folk in Barangay Salambao in Obando have expressed fears that the 44-hectare landfill in their area would be a “toxic time bomb.”
The Philippine Information Agency (PIA) quoted yesterday the CBCP as saying that the project “will have disastrous impact on people’s health and on the environment as it would be built near the mouth of Salambao-Binuangan River, a tributary that empties to Manila Bay.”
“Those against the project, which include citizens’ groups, church and religious associations, an environmental coalition, and a fisherfolk alliance have stressed that the waste facility will be harmful to health, destroy livelihood, worsen the perennial problem of flooding in the town and aggravate the deterioration of Manila Bay,” the CBCP was quoted to have said in a report.
The PIA also cited the clergy group as urging authorities behind the controversial project to “consider the inputs of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) which declared the Obando landfill as highly vulnerable to flooding, storm surges and environmental risks.”
The Phivolcs was reported to have observed that “the low and flat altitude of Obando is susceptible to liquefaction and flooding as what had happened during the recent typhoons Pedring and Quiel.
Liquefaction is a process by which wet ground starts to behave like a liquid, thus destroying structures on top of it.
“The coastal areas of the municipality are prone to tsunami inundation especially in the event of major earthquake occurrence coming from the Manila Trench and other nearby offshore earthquakes close to Bulacan,” Phivolcs said.
The group EcoWaste Coalition has decried the regional office of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) for allegedly “failing to consider the unsuitability of the area as a waste disposal facility which the group called a “toxic time bomb in a hazard zone.”
On December 22 last year, the EMB issued an Environmental Compliance Certificate to EcoShield Development Corporation for the construction of the Obando landfill which could contain 1,000 metric tons of wastes daily and is expected to cater to Metro Manila’s garbage.
Officials involved in the construction of an engineered sanitary landfill said the facility will be operational by the second quarter of 2012.
Architect Rafael Tecson, executive vice president and general manager of Ecoshield Development Corp., said the Obando facility would be totally different from the sanitary landfill in Navotas.
“Phase 1 of the project, which will have funding of P350 million to P480 million, will consist of 5,000 square meters. The project will adopt a compartmentalized setup wherein waste will be accommodated by blocks or cells,” Tecson told stakeholders in a meeting at Edsa Shangri-La.
Under the first phase, some 200 jobs will reportedly be generated. Tecson said the landfill has a multi-barrier system, embankments and meticulously engineered high-density plastic layerings that would prevent the seepage of contaminated water to outlying communities.
He said the landfill being put up in Barangay Salambao will be able to accommodate 1,000 metric tons of garbage per day. “We have secured the necessary permits from the barangay level up to the national level as represented by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources,” he said.
