PB wants powerplant to meet need for ECC

The Cebu Provincial Board has called the attention of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the new management of the Global Power Plant in Toledo City for the latter’s environmental compliance certificate (ECC), amid the hazardous ashes that the power plant has been reportedly emitting.

The resolution, approved by the PB, stated that while they support the new management of the coal-fired power plant, it would substantiates more its competence by having an ECC to show that it is responsible in environment conservation and public healthy.

The resolution commented that the construction of the power plant went on even without the ECC because it got a certificate of non-compliance (CNC) instead. The CNC was however questionable, the PB said, because it was based on the context that the plant would stand on the old plant even if what was constructed was a new coal plant.

“This could not have escaped the trained and invasive eye of our co-workers at the DENR-Environmental Management Board whose policy clearly spelled in their handbooks on sustainability as well as our laws on environmental management,” the resolution reads.

The PB said that even when the hazardous ashes are already emitted and the danger now eminent, it is still fitting to review the certificates issued and rectify the mistakes to follow the law on environmental conservation and the constitutional guarantee of public health.

“It is a paramount duty of every Cebuano especially the Cebuano public officials to conserve and protect the environment for future generations of Cebuanos. This is not only a constitutional mandate but a matter of natural survival,” the PB said. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/RAE