Mayor Belen announces closure finally
BALON DAGUPAN NEWS
50-YEAR OLD DUMPSITE
CITY Mayor Belen Fernandez said that with just a few more pending administrative regulations to accomplish, a new change is about to take place in Dagupan–the closure of its more than 50-year old dumpsite in Bonuan.
Ms. Fernandez bared this in a speech after she was conferred a Doctorate Degree in Public Administration by Lyceum Northwestern University (LNU) on the occasion if its 26th Founders’ Day last September 24.
“I am pleased to inform you that a new change is forthcoming in our city. It is a change that we had hoped for in the last 50 years,” Fernandez said before the LNU students and faculty.
She said the 50-year old open dumpsite has brought to the city “a great measure of misery, shame and helplessness across the years and must now be closed to provide relief to residents and give hope to the future generations of Dagupenos.”
The answer, she said, lies in the scheduled construction of an US$ 8 million waste management facility funded by Procter and Gamble USA, the Asian Development Bank and supported by the US State Department, a first of its kind in the Philippines if not the world.
For this project, the city will not spend a single centavo except to provide the lot where the facility will stand.
The mayor said her staff has been having marathon technical meetings with Department of Environment and Natural Resources Assistant Regional Director for Technical Matters Gwendolin Bambalan, Environmental Management Bureau Director Antonio Estrada and newly designated Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer Celsa Salazar to iron out the remaining kinks delaying the implementation of the project called “Waste to Worth.” among others.
“Our achievements in good governance has become our hallmark that attracted the progressive minds in the world to bet that we can solve our solid waste problem,”
She cited the help of U.S-based Ocean Conservancy, on top of Procter and Gamble and its partner Sure Global, to help solve the city’s waste disposal problem.
Ms. Fernandez was invited by the Ocean Conservancy to attend a world forum in Chile in October that will discuss extensively the technology of converting solid wastes into fuel using a technology called “Waste to Worth”.
US State Undersecretary Catherine Noveli will meet Mayor Fernandez in Chile for an update on the project.
“When completed, we shall finally employ the best technology available in the world to transform our trash into productive assets like fuel grade diesel and biogas,” Ms. Fernandez told her audience.
The existing Dagupan dumpsite was described by the mayor as a stark symbol of how the city has mismanaged its wastes for decades, threatening to spill out and pollute the ocean which has given so much bounty and blessings to the city and its people.
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