Dumaguete's 30 brgys back sanitary landfill project

CEBU, Philippines — All the 30 barangays of Dumaguete City already supported for the closure of the open dumpsite and the establishment of a sanitary landfill at Barangay Candau-ay.

The last barangay that approved a resolution, endorsing the safe closure and rehabilitation plan (SCRP) of the open dumpsite, was Barangay Camanjac, whose parish priest and few residents had opposed against it.

A resolution endorsing the SCRP, part of which is the establishment of a materials recovery facility, sanitary landfill and other related facilities was approved by majority of the members of the Camanjac Barangay Council.

Resolution No. 2018-016, dated June 27, 2018, declares that Mayor Felipe Remollo deserves an all-out support of all local officials and residents of the city for his tireless and consistent efforts to address the 30-year-old problem on how to responsibly manage and dispose of the city’s solid wastes.

The 29 other barangays were the first to endorse the establishment of a sanitary landfill through a joint resolution.

Records show that, in January 2010, the DENR issued a final notice to the late Mayor Agustin Perdices for continuous violation and non-compliance of the provisions of Republic Act 9903 on proper waste disposal management of the city.

On December 10, 2010, an authority to close the open dumpsites and controlled dump facilities was issued to the then mayor and now Representative Manuel Teves Sagarbarria (2nd district, Negros Oriental). However, after two years, the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau found out that the city is still operating the open garbage dumpsite in Candau-ay, which is adjacent to the Banica River.

The EMB findings showed that the concentration of the water pollutants contained in the leachate, generated from the dump, was very much above the maximum allowable values, thus the leachate was deemed highly pollutant.

The DENR wrote, on 16 April 2012, Sagarbarria to rectify the violations of the Clean Water Act of 2004, which carries a penalty of P10,000 daily, unless the dump is immediately closed.

Four days after Mayor Felipe Remollo assumed office on July 4, 2017, he received another memorandum from the DENR-7 regional director directing him to properly close and rehabilitate the dump and to submit a SCRP. Remollo said he could not let this problem be inherited by the next set of city officials, thus he asked everybody in the city to cooperate and look for solutions.

Remollo then issued an executive order creating the technical working group to scout for possible sites where a sanitary landfill can be established, even in neighboring towns, as far as Siaton in the south and Amlan in the north. However, no town would accept the proposal, so the TWG returned to Dumaguete.

Finally, the TWG found a possible site, also located in Candau-ay, and DENR-7 also approved the city’s SCRP of the present dumpsite. Part of the SCRP is the establishment of an MRF and the sanitary landfill, although the City Council is still debating on this to this day.