Inayawan landfill placed under state of calamity

THE Cebu City government has placed the sole landfill of the city under a state of calamity yesterday.

The Cebu City Council declared the Inayawan Landfill under a state of calamity so that the city government could quickly access funds to address the problems of the landfill including the lack of a wastewater facility.

Cebu City Councilor Nida Cabrera, one of the sponsors of the resolution, said that with the declaration of the state of calamity, they could now get P9 million from the calamity fund for the rental of the equipment and machines to process the wastes.

The city has already allotted P11 million for the wastewater treatment facility.

City Councilors Edu Rama and Nida Cabrera, who sponsored the resolution, said the landfill was in a crisis condition.

“The absence of proper wastewater, leachate and sludge treatment facility, which pose potential environmental hazard to the coastal water and health hazards to the residents of neighboring communities,” the resolution read.

The resolution s aid that since the operation of the Inayawan landfill on 1998, there was no water treatment facility in the dumpsite.

The landfill is estimated to produce 100 cubic meters a day of wastewater. Its leachate flows directly to the Mactan Channel untreated.

Cabrera said this activity was illegal since the city didn’t have any permit from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to discharge leachate to the channel.

To lessen the flow of leachate, the city government would close the Inayawan landfill on June 1 from six septic haulers.

Randy Navarro, head of Inayawan landfill, said that as of yesterday the waste pool where the septic waste goes had overflowed because of the heavy rains in the past few days.

With the landfill under the state of calamity, Cabrera said she hoped that building a water treatment facility would be immediate.

“An impending calamity is seen if the city adopts no preventive measures to curtail the negative effects of the problems,” the resolution said.

Mayor Michael Rama said he would check with the Cebu City Disaster Coordinator Council (CCDCC) on what has to be done on the landfill as the state of the calamity was declared./Fatrick Tabada Correspondent