By Erwin
G. Beleo
ARINGAY, La Union –
Farmers living along the river bank in this town and a non-government
organization have filed a case before the Regional Trial Court Branch 31 here seeking a temporary
environmental protection order (Tepo to stop the ongoing construction of a
P240-million hydro power plant in Barangay Halog East, Tubao, this province.
The farmers and the
Aringay Development Coordinating Team, represented by lawyer Charlie Juloya,
alleged that the management of the Tubao Mini-Hydro Electric Power Corporation
(TMHEC) violated several environmental laws in constructing the project that
would endanger the lives of the residents along the river bank.
“We filed the case
because farmers and residents of Aringay were not consulted about the project,”
Juloya said. “There were violations in the ‘environmental compliance certificate’
(ECC). Instead of a 10-meter high diversion run-of-river, the project became a
25-meter high impounding dam and instead of a 1.5 megawatt it is now designed
for a 3-megawatt hydro-power plant,” he added.
Juloya said the
project will cause flooding and would affect around 6,000 farmers because it
will hold waters for the irrigation of vast farm lands in the second district
of La Union.
No comments:
Post a Comment