Jewelry plants blamed for Bulacan fishkill

MEYCAUAYAN CITY – Fishpond operators blamed wastewater discharged by jewelry factories, not the summer heat, for the death of their fish stocks since last Tuesday.

Jovencio Legazpi, a fishpond operator in Barangay Saluysoy, said they have been experiencing fishkills once or twice in the last 10 years, but the government has not made any move so far.

He said the government should take the lead because it is widely believed that effluents from the jewelry plants have polluted the river in Saluysoy.

This was echoed by Hermie del Rosario, a government employee who went on an emergency leave yesterday as fish stocks in his small pond started dying.

Del Rosario said the fishkill might have been caused by the summer heat, but wondered why other ponds in this city and nearby Marilao town were not affected.

Residents said a number of gold and silver smelting factories are located in Barangay Saluysoy.

They said effluents from these factories are visible in the nearby creek whose surface would turn silvery when silver effluents were discharged and yellow when effluents used in washing gold jewelry were dumped.

Part of the Marilao-Meycauayan-Obando river system, the Salusoy creek is visibly polluted.

The river system hogged the spotlight recently after the Black Smith Institute included it in the list of the 30 dirtiest places in the world.

Last February, Environment Secretary Lito Atienza declared the 54-kilometer river system a “water quality management area” to fast-track its rehabilitation.

But residents are pessimistic about the rehab plan, as hundreds of liters of used industrial oil were dumped in the Marilao River last March 23, and garbage with a volume of about 200 truckloads jammed the Prenza Dam last Monday.