Healing the water

The newly discovered leak of untreated waste water from Cebu City’s Inayawan sanitary landfill into the Mactan Channel is part of the growth pains the metropolis is experiencing as it strives to integrate ecological stewardship into local culture.

That’s not to say that no one should take the flak for the absence in the landfill of a waste water treatment facility that passes the standards set by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Further degradation of the channel would have been avoided had the Cebu City government heeded the call, made thrice by the DENR, for the construction of a waste water treatment facility.

As it is the channel is now besieged on both ends, with illegal fishers and shell and coral hunters on the prowl up north and filthy water asphyxiating the sea and its inhabitants from the south.

Again, the culprit is clearly that prevailing mindset among supposed gurus of city development (hopefully on the wane now), that progress can be achieved while incessantly tabling a working agenda for ecological stewardship.

Councilor Nida Cabrera, chairperson of the Cebu City Council’s environment committee, said she foresees the completion of a standard waste water treatment facility in the landfill before the year ends.

We can only hope that “before the year ends” is not around December, since the waste water leak will be compounded by the arrival, much earlier, of the rainy season.

Our officials must quickly stop the degradation of our seas and rivers through diry water intrusion.

They must remember, too, that:

(1) The use of treated waste water can reduce demand for potable water sources.

(2) Treated waste water can be used for the maintenance of the city’s parks, playgrounds, center islands and even upland farms.

(3) Untreated waste water is home to microbes that, borne by floods or penetrating water sources, cause illness in or death of humans.

In fact, water treatment facilities should be available not only in the Inayawan landfill but in strategic locations across the city, considering that the DENR recently reported about the worsening pollution of rivers like Guadalupe nearly two decades after it was declared dead.

The leak of dirty water from the Inayawan landfill in the Mactan channel should also remind Metro Cebu residents of the importance of complying with waste segregation policies. Proper segregation of waste makes it less likely for harmful substances to make it to water bodies.

Lastly, this environment disaster should highlight the importance of maintaining clear easement zones along bodies of water, so that settlers won’t make stinking canals out of our rivers and creeks.