Batangas hog farms dump manure into Taal Lake

At least 28 commercial and backyard piggeries in a town in Batangas province are illegally discharging animal manure into natural waterways, threatening Taal Lake, according to an environmentalist group.

The nongovernment Pusod Taal Lake Conservation Center (TLCC) prepared a master list showing that 14 of the piggeries in Mataas na Kahoy town had not secured environmental compliance certificates from nor filed an environmental impact assessment in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

The permit is required of a hog farm with at least 100 heads, according to Pusod board secretary and environmental lawyer Ipat Luna.

Pusod TLCC serves as a “knowledge center” established by Pusod Inc. and the municipal government for the implementation of the Taal Volcano Protected Areas Management Plan.

So far, one farm, operated by Batangas Agro Industrial Corp., has been issued a notice of violation by the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau, provincial environment officer Elmer Bascos said in a phone interview on Sunday.

Luna said the problem with waste discharge had become more pronounced during the rainy season “when the animal manure from the farms are easily washed down into Lipute River.”

The river, situated on the boundary of Mataas na Kahoy and Balete, another Batangas town, is a tributary of Taal lake.

“There had been a discharge of animal waste last August,” Luna said in an earlier interview.

A Pusod volunteer, in a separate interview, said another discharge was observed at the height of Typhoon “Ruby” early this month. She requested that her name be withheld in fear of reprisal from hog raisers.

Most severely affected were the lakeshore villages of Calingatan and Kinalaglagan.

“We cannot determine the volume but you’ll see the animal wastes floating on the water,” she said. “When the wind blows, it stinks,” said the volunteer, who is a resident of Mataas na Kahoy.

“They (hog raisers) either let the rain wash away the wastes or intentionally drain them into the river,” she added. “No one cleans up. [The waste] just settles down.”

She said the DENR and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources had taken samples of the lake water, but test results have not yet been released.