Overflowing Urdaneta landfill to be closed soon
THE three-hectare sanitary landfill in Barangay Catablan, managed by the Urdaneta City government, is almost full to the brim and will soon stop accepting wastes from other localities, a city councilor said last week.
Councilor Onofre Gorospe said the landfill established in 2010 during the term of former Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr., has exceeded its projected life span of 12 years and should now be used exclusively by the city.
It was built at a cost of P270 million through a loan from the Land Bank of the Philippines, and generated income through tipping fees from other local government units that brought their wastes there. The loan was already fully paid during the current Parayno administration.
Gorospe revealed the landfill’s 12-year lifespan could have been extended to 36 years had the succeeding mayor, Amadeo “Bobom” Perez IV, agreed to his proposal that a waste-to-energy facility be installed at the dumpsite to convert the garbage into methane gas that can be used to generate electricity.
Perez IV was defeated by Mayor Julio Parayno III during the 2022 election.
An estimated 16 megawatts of power, the daily average power needed by Urdaneta, can be produced from 300 tons of garbage, which can be sold to Panelco III and resell the same to consumers in the city, cheaper than the normal rate, said Gorospe, then the vice mayor .
Gorospe sought foreign funding for the facility but when the U.S. Embassy in Manila expressed intent to help, Perez IV withdrew his support to the project.
“Urdaneta City would have been the second sanitary landfill to integrate a waste-to-energy facility in its systems after the sanitary landfill in Rodriguez, Rizal, which produces 20 megawatts and sells it to Meralco,” he said.
At the time, Baguio City was delivering 120 tons of garbage to the dumpsite, and another 120 tons from four adjacent municipalities, aside from the garbage being generated in the city.
More local governments started bringing their garbage to the Urdaneta landfill after the closure of the Metro Clark sanitary landfill in Tarlac in October last year.
Gorospe, citing a Commission on Audit report, said the tipping fee of P900 per ton paid by Baguio and four Pangasinan local governments was not properly accounted for and mishandled when Perez was still mayor. (Leonardo Micua)
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