BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan underscored the local government wants to venture on implementable solid waste management programs to held reduce the city’s expenses in hauling residual waste outside the city and to find permanent and lasting solutions to the existing garbage disposal concerns.
The local chief executive belied the conclusions of some members of the local legislative body that the local government is not inclined to put an end to the hauling of garbage because by embracing the conversion of the Antamok open pit area into a sanitary landfill with waste-to-energy component, then the city will still venture on hauling, saying that there will be hauling of waste to the Antamok landfill project, but it will be the city that will do the disposal of waste without sacrificing the segregation of waste at source, the collection of recyclable materials by the volunteers among their existing solid waste disposal initiatives by the residents and the barangays.
“We remain committed to continuing looking for implementable means to effectively and efficiently address our garbage disposal concerns that is why we are open to doable proposals that will help us in reducing our hauling expenses and formulating a permanent solution to our garbage disposal concerns,” Domogan stressed.
On the planned use of a site in Ampucao as the original site of the proposed sanitary landfill to be funded by a grant from the South Korean government, he explained it will surely take a long time to realize the project because it has to pass through the reclassification of the land considering that it is part of the Lower Agno watershed reservation.
For the use of a portion of the 139-hectare city-owned property in Sto. Tomas School Area as the site for the city’s integrated solid waste disposal facility, Domogan pointed out the local government needs hundreds of millions of pesos to build the infrastructure component of the project that will also take a longer period of time since there is a need to source out the required funds for the purpose.
He explained the Antamok landfill project seems to be the most feasible once it passes the study being conducted by concerned government agencies on its compliance with the standards of environmental preservation and protection as it will definitely be advantageous not only to the city but also to the neighboring municipalities of Benguet that do not have the appropriate disposal facilities and renewable energy generated from the waste could be used to lower the power cost in the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (BLISTT) areas.
He emphasized all the comments, insinuations, conclusions and other remarks against the Antamok landfill project are premature because there is no feasibility study yet that will determine its doability as the company in charge of the project is still conducting due diligence and the necessary study to support the landfill project.
He asserted what the local government is doing in searching for implementable solutions to the city’s solid waste concerns is for the benefit of the greater majority of the city’s populace and nothing more.
By Dexter A. See