Dump cracks alarm Benguet exec

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet—This capital town of Benguet province is facing a trash slide, similar to what happened to a facility in neighboring Baguio City in 2011, unless the local government starts improving its waste management system.

Benedict Pineda, La Trinidad municipal engineer, said the town government could no longer guarantee the safety of the landfill in Barangay (village) Alno, which he described as under pressure from overloading.

Pineda said the local government must stop using the landfill and must reinforce the facility’s retaining wall.

“There are already cracks on its retaining wall, a sign of [it being] overburdened,” he said.

Only one unit of the town’s sanitary landfill is being used. The town has not completed work on another section.

Pineda said a trash slide was “very possible” if the town continues to dump garbage in the Alno facility. “The retaining wall could fail to hold the accumulated trash as it is already too high,” he said.

He offered as reference the trash slide in Baguio two years ago.

In 2011, a section of the summer capital’s open dump in Barangay Irisan collapsed due to strong rain dumped by Typhoon “Mina,” killing six people and polluting the Kagaling waterway that serves Barangay Asin and a town in La Union province.

Unlike Baguio’s case, the Alno dump does not imperil settlements, although it could pollute the Balili River and flower gardens in the area.

Pineda said garbage towered 6 meters above the 3.5-meter-high retaining wall.

“The level of garbage should not exceed the height of the retaining wall. Should it exceed, the excess should be at the maximum one-third of the height of the wall. But right now the excess is twice the height of the retaining wall,” he said.

Information from the La Trinidad government showed that households and businesses here generate 93 tons of  garbage daily. The local government collects and ships to the Alno landfill about 50 tons of garbage every day, but it has failed to collect about 43 tons  in remote villages. Kimberlie Quitasol, Inquirer Northern Luzon