Cebu City to get technical support from Yokohama

CEBU, Philippines - Over 35 delegates from the City of Yokohama in Japan are in Cebu City until Thursday for a joint survey mission under the Technical Cooperation for Sustainable Urban Development of Cebu City.

The delegation who are officials of Yokohama City Government, a representative from the academe and representatives of 20 private firms will share their expertise in the formulation of a strategic plan for urban development of Cebu City.

Norihiko Nomura, Director General of the Office of Co-Governance and Creation, Policy Bureau of Yokohama City said these private firms came here at their own expense to provide technical support to Cebu City.

They are from the consultancy industry, water and soil treatment industry, waste disposal and waste management field, automobile manufacturing, engineering services, transport planning and urban planning and green energy and green technology fields.

Their expertise is needed for a holistic strategy to be designed to make Cebu City sustainable and livable. The sustainable urban development strategy for Cebu City shall focus on three major problems – wastewater and solid waste management, flood control and transportation.

Nomura said that Yokohama City used to have polluted rivers, polluted air and a slow economy. Their major challenge in the past was wastewater management and sewage system.

But they developed their city and addressed all concerns because they made a plan on how to deal with their problems.

He said that Yokohama City also had financial struggles in implementing the desired development for the city. But with a plan, they kept themselves ontrack and focused on their goals.

He said the same strategy may be applied to Cebu City. Yokohama is an emerging city like Cebu City with a population of 3.7 million.

Cebu City’s population is only almost one million.

“It is essentially important that we make this city sustainable and livable so people will keep coming back. This city’s problems include pollution in water, traffic and waste management. We came here so we can work together to solve these issues,” Nomura said.

Yesterday, Yokohama delegates visited the sewage treatment plant at the North Reclamation Area.

Engr. Randy Navarro, Assistant Department Head of the Department of Public Services said that the visitors will inspect the Inayawan dumpsite today.

“I have presented to them our need for waste-to-enegry facility, leachate or wastewater treatment facility, sludge or septage treatment facility and other technology to treat our hospital waste and electronic waste. They expressed interest to help us in our wastewater treatment,” Navarro said.

The Inayawan landfill has no leachate treatment facility. Navarro said that during heavy rain, the leachate pond overflows that leaks the leachate to the nearby sources of water. He said it goes to the Mactan channel or worse, could be going underground contaminating artesian wells.

The immediate vicinity of Inayawan landfill has artesian wells where residents source their water.

Navarro said the residents were advised not to get water for drinking from these wells.  (FREEMAN)