Muntinlupa public market soon to have wastewater treatment facility

To address the need for proper waste management, Muntinlupa local officials said a wastewater treatment facility is now being built in the city’s public market.

Muntinlupa City Mayor Jaime Fresnedi said the undertaking is part of the Local Initiatives for Affordable Wastewater Treatment (LINAW) project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

"The project once completed will make the area cleaner and will attract more shoppers," Fresnedi said. The Muntinlupa City Public Market, which has around 2,000 vendors, sits on a two-hectare property in the heart of Alabang.

He explained that wastewater coming from the market, which runs through the Pasong Diablo creek, goes to the Laguna Lake.

"We don’t want to compromise the health of city residents and endanger natural bodies of water that is why we are pushing for the project’s implementation," he said.

The USAID is providing technical assistance while the local government allocated around P5 billion for the construction of said facility.

LINAW project coordinator Jet Pabilonia said the facility, which is now 60- to 70-percent complete, utilizes alternative technologies to treat wastewater coming from the market. "It is low cost and easy to operate," Pabilona said.

He added that laboratories in other critical areas of the city will also be put up to monitor the wastewater being produced by other establishments.

The Muntinlupa City government through its Public Information Office yesterday launched its "Poso de Negro" clean water awareness campaign. The campaign provides information as to how households and other establishments can prevent groundwater contamination through proper maintenance of septic tanks, also known as poso negro.

Studies show that only about 15 percent of Metro Manila’s 2.8 million households are linked to a sewerage system and that only a small number of these households have properly maintained septic tanks. — Rhodina Villanueva