Treatment plant delayed

CEBU, Philippines - The establishment of a wastewater treatment plant in the Inayawan Landfill will be delayed indefinitely after the City Council yesterday held the resolution supposedly to authorize the mayor to enter into a contract with the winning bidder.

The proposed P10.5-million wastewater treatment plant was awarded to Metro Waste-Gela Construction JV but the council laid the authorization resolution on the table because some councilors want to ask if the amount can be decreased.

Councilor Edu Rama, chairman of the committee on public services said, majority of the councilors want to scale down the proposed treatment plant since they said the Inayawan Landfill will eventually be closed totally.

Councilor Nida Cabrera said there is definitely a need for the treatment plant because the landfill will continue to produce leachate for the next five years even after it stops receiving garbage.

She said the council wants to know if they can construct a smaller leachate plant because the volume of leachate that will be produced will decrease over the years.

The P10.5-million treatment plant was proposed and its capacity was based on the leachate produced by the landfill when it was still functioning as a landfill.

The lack of wastewater treatment plant was one of the violations of City Government found by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Pollution Control Division.

Since the mayor closed the landfill for dumping but kept it open for processing, they expect the volume of leachate to have decreased. — (FREEMAN)