Collapsed Baguio trash site rehab to beat court deadline

By Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY – The city government here is hastening to beat the 20-month deadline set the by the court to rehabilitate and convert the Irisan dump facility here into an eco-park.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan bared this even as the city continues to face setbacks on implementation of the project to rehabilitate the collapsed retaining wall to stabilize the area.

           

Three persons died when the wall collapsed last year at the height of a storm.

           

The mayor said last week the city will do its best to comply with the terms of the consent decree that settled the Writ of Kalikasan to stop the use of waste facility.

           

“As I see it, we can do it before the deadline,” he said.

           

The mayor said they are closely monitoring the retaining wall project which remained unimplemented due to issues on the program of works.

           

He said procedures require plan and specifications to be checked and approved by the national office of the Dept. of Public Works and Highways and this has been causing the delay.

           

A recent setback, he disclosed, was that when the approved documents arrived from the DPWH, the technical working committee formed by the mayor to formulate the structural plans and which includes experts from the universities in the city discovered that a project component deemed vital to the stability of the supposed all-weather structure was removed.

           

This he said caused Saint Louis University dean BonifacioDela Pena, a member of the committee, to refuse to sign the program of work saying that without the said component, he cannot assure the safety of the structure.

           

The mayor said this prompted the committee to return the program of work and insist on including the said component to guaranty the safety of the structure which will entail project delay.

The project, funded by the national government, aims to restore the wall which collapsed at the height of a strong typhoon last year into an all-weather structure designed to withstand strong typhoons and heavy rains to stabilize the dump facility.

The mayor said the rehabilitation of the wall serves as a jumpstart to the dumpsite’s conversion into an eco-park in keeping with the terms of the compromise agreement.

The conditions as issued by the Court of Appeals mandate the permanent closure of the facility from waste disposal and as holding or staging area for wastes and its rehabilitation and conversion into an eco-park within a non-extendible period of 20 months.