The Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) has ordered three popular food establishments to shut down their waste water pipelines for flushing pollutants into the freshwater lake.
Led by the agency’s acting general manager, Dolora Nepomuceno, an LLDA team yesterday served cease-and-desist orders on two branches of the Jollibee fast-food chain in Novaliches, Quezon City, and in San Mateo, Rizal province, and on the famous Chinese restaurant Ma Mon Luk on Quezon Avenue, Quezon City.
LLDA public information officer Martin Antonio said the three establishments had been violating the 2004 Clean Water Act for many years, based on inspections and analyses of the water samples from their pipes.
“The water these establishments have been releasing to the lake has pollutants that exceed the standard set by the law,” Antonio said.
Records showed that since 2007, the Jollibee branch in San Mateo has continuously failed to meet the effluent standard parameters for inland waters.
The LLDA noted that the food outlet has been discharging waste water with a biological oxygen demand (BOD) loading up to 3,540 mg/L, exceeding the limit set at 50 mg/L.
A high BOD deprives fish and other aquatic organisms of oxygen, it explained.
The BOD level must be kept within such a limit “especially since the lake supplies around 700,000 kilos of bangus and tilapia and 300,000 kilos of bighead carp to Metro Manila per week,” the agency stressed.
Jollibee-Sta. Quiteria, Novaliches, branch has also been failing LLDA tests, the agency said. Apart from releasing waste water with BOD of up to 1,541 mg/L, the company had also failed to properly maintain its grease tap based on inspections conducted in November 2008 and October 2009.
The latest water sampling from Ma Mon Luk was found to have a BOD of 1,411 mg/L, despite the restaurant’s earlier claims that had it had done corrective measures, the LLDA reported.
The three establishments earlier received a notice from LLDA allowing them to fix the problem. “But after several inspections, nothing have changed and they were still discharging pollutants into the lake.”
It came to the point when the establishments were asked to explain in court why they should not be issued cease-and-desist orders (CDO), Antonio said.
“The cases have matured and the last resort was to issue a CDO,” he said.
In January, the LLDA ordered a McDonalds branch in Pasig City and the King Sue Ham and Sausage Company in Caloocan City to stop releasing waste water to Laguna Lake for similar violations of the Clean Water Act.
The orders on McDonalds and King Sue were later lifted after the two companies fixed their water treatment facilities.
The LLDA clarified that it was not closing down the entire operations of the restaurants covered by the orders, and that it only required them “to cease and desist from operating their facilities, equipment and machinery which are (found to be) sources of pollutant discharges.”
A penalty of P10,000 per day will be imposed on the sanctioned establishment from the initial date of inspection until the “full cessation of pollutive discharge,” it said in a statement. Niña Calleja