Quarry land turned garbage dump in Porac. All photos courtesy of Sonny Dobles
Creek runs through Lara dumpsite in the City of San Fernando. Mounting unsegregated waste at Lara.
Black stinking pool by the SCTEx in Mabalacat City.
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Thick, curling black smoke rising against a clear blue cloudless sky.
That was the “clearest indication” of the still-operating open dumpsite in Guagua town inspected by a joint team of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) Region 3 office of the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources and the Alliance for the Development of Central Luzon (ADCL) last week.
“Not only RA 9003 – for the dumped waste – is being blatantly violated there but also RA 8749 – the burning of garbage, “said Alfonso Dobles, Jr., ADCL chair, who led the inspection. He was referring to the Solid Waste Management Act and the Clean Air Act.
The proximity of the dumpsite – “just a few steps away – to the Guagua River, Dobles said, consisted a violation of the Philippine Clear Water Act of 2004 (RA 9275) which prohibits “the discharge, deposit, or cause to be deposited material of any kind directly or indirectly into a body of water or along the margins of any surface water which is prone to be washed into such surface water either by tide action or by storm, floods or could cause water pollution or impede the natural flow in the water body.”
At the time they were at the Guagua dumpsite, Dobles said a dump truck with plate number SHT 972 and bearing the name of Mayor Ric Rivera disposed of mixed garbage collected from the public market.
“Upon closer look, not only ordinary domestic waste is being dumped at the site but also hazardous hospital waste,” Dobles said, adding that a scavenger told them it came from the provincial hospital also located in Guagua town.
“There is another violation here,” Dobles noted, “as the burning of municipal, biomedical and hazardous wastes is banned under Section 20 of RA 8749.”
Leachate
No smoking trash at the Barangay Lara dumpsite in this city, Dobles said, but the once-burnt area “is again a rising mountain of unsegregated garbage with leachate seeping out into and contaminating a river just a few steps away.”
In its environmental sense, leachate refers to a liquid that drains from stockpiled material, such as garbage, which contains high concentration of harmful substances derived from the material that it has passed through.
“The Lara dumpsite is the undeniable evidence of the city government’s continuing violation of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Solid Waste Management Act,” commented Dobles.
Two government trucks – one marked Barangay Del Pilar, the other with plate number SJR 537 – dumping garbage were recorded by the inspection team at the time they were in Lara. No less than 10 trucks dump garbage there daily, a worker at the place reportedly told them.
Adjacent to the dumpsite, the “biosphere facility ballyhooed by the city government to solve the city’s waste problem sits idle.”
Dobles reported that “compressed blocks of residual waste supposed to be pelletized to energy sources are outgrown with weeds and grass, proving biosphere is not working.”
“Maybe the Lingkod Bayan Award Mayor (Oscar) Rodriguez received from President Aquino did not cover waste management and environmental protection,” Dobles said.
Sawali MRF
In Mabalacat City, the team found the supposed Central Material Recovery Facility (CMRF) in Barangay Sapang Balen “nothing but a sawali-fenced area surrounded by sacks of plastics and in the center lay unsorted garbage.”
A few meters away from the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, “a pile of fresh garbage is pushed into a body of water that had turn black because of the decaying trash, waiting for bulldozer to cover it with sand.”
“The tell-tale tracks of a bulldozer can be seen near the pile of garbage,” said Dobles, adding that as the team was leaving the area, they met “three trucks full of unsegregated garbage.
Relocated dumpsite
In Porac, the dumpsite in Barangay Manuali, Porac has been replaced by a quarrying facility.
“But this does not mean the town has stopped using dumpsites,” Dobles hastened, “with a new dumpsite relocated to Barangay Mitla starting its operation in July this year.”
Added Dobles: “Since its operation, no instruction was ever given to transfer wastes to Metro Clark Sanitary Landfill, so the town’s residual wastes is buried here after segregation at the MRF. An average of 10 trucks arrive here everyday.”
The team though noted “on-going improvement in the MRF for the shredder of biodegradable waste.”
General finding
The inspection has found, Dobles said, that “12 years since the enactment of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (RA 9003), local government units in Pampanga continue to use and operate dumpsites despite its prohibition and despite the legal mandate that the LGUs shall be primarily responsible for the implementation and enforcement of this act.”
“The LGUs have likewise shirked their responsibility in the management, improvement and maintenance of water and air quality within their territorial jurisdictions,” he added.
More inspections are to be undertaken this week after which the EMB will release an official report.
Aside from Dobles, the team is composed of ESWM Regional Coordinator Laura Jean L. Abando of EMB-DENR Region III and Reynaldo Garcia, the assistant team leader and provincial environmental officer for Pampanga.
