Bonuan residents cry ‘foul’ over garbage dumping
USING garbage as filling material for construction on a private lot in a residential neighborhood?
A very foul idea.
The Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO), headed by Leduina Co, has ruled that the extraction of solid wastes from the Dagupan dumpsite and its transport and dumping to two private lots in Barangay Bonuan Boquig is a violation of Republic Act No. 9003 or the Ecological and Solid Waste Management Act and those responsible must be made to answer for their actions.
Co said the matter has been endorsed to the Regional Director of the Environment Management Bureau in San Fernando City, La Union, which will then issue a directive for the resolution of the issue.
A copy of the PENRO report was sent to Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez, chair of the Sangguniang Panlungsod, where affected residents of Bonuan Boquig earlier sent a letter of complaint.
The garbage dumping was being made on lots in Maximo and Gonzales Streets, both in a residential area and the latter is near a public elementary and secondary school.
The report was also forwarded to Bonuan Boquig Barangay Chairman William Datuin as well as the identified landowners of the property, Barangay Chairman Pedro Gonzales of Bonuan Binloc.
Acting as mayor last week, Fernandez called a meeting at city hall on May 11 to discuss the issue where four kagawads of Bonuan Boquig joined the protesting residents.
The kagawads said they were not aware or consulted about the supposed memorandum of agreement signed by Barangay Chairmen Gonzales of Binloc and Datuin of Boquig with Teddy Villamil, officer-in-charge of the City Waste Management Division, for the dumping.
The kagawads said the garbage not only causes an obnoxious smell in the area but also compromised the health of residents.
Co, in her letter to Fernandez, said extracting garbage from the open dumpsite being operated by the City Government of Dagupan as filling materials “violates sound engineering principles and practices and the provisions of Republic Act 9003, otherwise known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.”
Moreover, the areas where the wastes are being dumped are residential in nature and surrounded by fishponds and agricultural lands. At the same time, these are observed to be flood-prone.
The solid wastes dumped in the two lots were intended to be mixed with soil or gravel and sand to be used as filling and embankment materials.
The PENRO report was based on findings and observations undertaken by Rodolfo de Ocampo, environmental specialist II, and John Liwag, Environmental Waste Management Focal Person.
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