Officials bar MM, rest of C. Luzon access to Clark ecozone landfill

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — The provincial board of Tarlac has banned wastes from Metro Manila and Central Luzon, except Tarlac province from being dumped into the P200 million sanitary landfill operated by a German consortuin within the Clark special economic zone in Barangay Kalangitan in Capas, Tarlac.

The Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Tarlac conveyed to the the Clark Development Corp. (CDC) its decision in Resolution No. 091-2996 which, however, was passed way back last October.

The resolution expressed concern over the dumping of alleged "hazardous, toxic, and biomedical wastes" into the landfill.

No one from the management of the landfill project could be contacted immediately, but reports from various sources indicated that several tons of wastes from Metro Manila are regularly processed and dumped into the landfill.

Checkpoints were established at barangay roads leading to the landfill in Kalangitan to prevent dump trucks in prohibited areas from reaching the landfill which is within the boundary of areas owned by the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) and under the operational and management jurisdiction of the CDC.

The first phase of the landfill, dubbed as the Clark Integrated Waste Management Project (CIWMP) was completed four years ago with much controversy, purportedly in time for the deadline imposed by Republic Act No. 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 against open waste dumping. The law imposed 2004 as deadline for shifting from open waste to controlled dumping and 2006 for the closure of even the controlled dumpsites in favor of projects similar to the Kalangitan landfill.

Officials of the CDC were taken by suprise by the resolution. CDC president and chief executive officer Liberato Laus expressed fears that limiting the use of the landfill to Tarlac could displace scores of people, including Aetas, employed in the project.

Some 100 hectares of land in Kalangitan were reserved for the project which the CDC hailed initially as the first and only sanitary landfill in the country. The project used German technology and was developed by the German consortium Ingenieurburo Birkhan + Nolte and Heers & Brockstedt GmbH & Co. KG.

The provincial board’s resolution suspended "the dumping into the Kalangitan sanitary landfill of garbage coming from Metro Manila, Clark economic zone and other areas except garbage coming from Tarlac."

"Based on reports of the multipartite monitoring team, the Metro Clark Waste Management Project failed to comply with the conditions and limitations imposed by the provincial government of Tarlac for the continued dumping of garbage" from other areas.

It cited violations, including lack of plastic lining for containment ponds, dumping of "hazardous, toxic and biomedical wastes," failure to develop roads towards the site, and "failure to account and pay the agreed share in the tipping fees due the province of Tarlac."