Mayor explains shelving of Sto. Tomas landfill

By Dexter A. See

BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan said the excessive development cost aggravated by the overlapping claims of land owners are among the major reasons why the city government shelved the proposal to put up an engineered sanitary landfill between Camp 7 and Sto. Tomas school area.

            

“While barangays officials and residents were supportive of the earlier proposal to put up a sanitary landfill in Sto. Tomas, several experts, including Korean technical people, did not recommend the city-owned property in the area as the site of our engineered sanitary landfill because of the excessive development cost,” Domogan said.

He added among works that will be undertaken is the construction of access roads leading to the landfill site which will again pass through some private properties that would subsequently derail the project.

           

He agreed that the search for a lasting solution to the city’s garbage problem is still one of the priorities of his administration amidst the setback that the city government had encountered over the past several years but there is a need for a collective effort among the local governments in the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (BLISTT) area in order to effectively and efficiently work out the needed solutions to a problem that the neighboring towns will also face in the future once development spreads to their places.

            

According to the city mayor, the recommendations not to push through with the Sto. Tomas engineered sanitary landfill project came from local and international experts and it was not the sole decision of any city official considering that the evaluation and assessment of the project passes through a pool of technical experts who are knowledgeable in such filed.

         

While it is true that the hauling of garbage is not the permanent solution to the city’s solid waste disposal problem, Domogan pointed out the current hauling of garbage outside the city is to make sure that the gains of our local tourism industry will not be derailed as the city government continues to study existing proposals on how to address the garbage problem, particularly the establishment of a sanitary landfill in a suitable area and some proposals relative to waste-to-energy which are now pending before the city solid waste management board.

            

He appealed to local residents to continue strictly complying with the segregation of garbage at source in order to significantly reduce the volume of waste being hauled out of the city and that the segregation process is now gaining headway in the city’s 128 barangays although it will still take some time for the people to really value the importance of their cooperation in the solid waste disposal concerns.

            

Some barangays are reportedly also doing their part in the disposal of non-biodegradable waste because of the presence of sufficient land where such type of waste will be disposed while others are also doing their part in taking away the recyclables which serve as the source of income of volunteers in the segregation of garbage in the barangays waste disposal sites.

            

Domogan called on local residents to cooperate with the current policies on solid waste disposal considering that long-term solutions are now being put in place by local and foreign experts in order to help effectively and efficiently address the problems of rapid urbanization vis-à-vis the city’s limited land area, thus, the need to partner with other local governments for such purpose.