Mayor asks firm to suspend coal, cement imports

MARIVELES, Bataan—Saying he feared the impact of coal on community health, Mayor Jesse Concepcion urged a company operating in the coastal village of Lucanin here to suspend the importation of coal and cement.

Concepcion, in a letter to Maria Isabel Tapan, port operations manager of the Seafront Shipyard and Port Terminal Services Inc., said the company should first consume its stock before resuming importation.

Seafront supplies power plants in Bulacan, Pampanga and other parts of Luzon with coal and cement from Indonesia.

Concepcion made the appeal as two cargo ships loaded with imported coal and cement docked at Seafront’s port here recently.

But Carlo Virgilio Ignacio, Seafront vice president for operations, informed the mayor, through an emissary, that his company would adopt safety measures to protect the health of residents.

In May, Byron Lisanin, Mariveles sanitary inspector, ordered Seafront to contain its coal supply that are stored in an open facility.

Lisanin urged the company to install an ambient air quality monitoring system and to put up a windbreaker at the coal yard to contain dust and smoke.

Concepcion said Seafront should also build a sanitation lagoon where wastes could be treated first before these are discharged into the sea.

The Mariveles government’s action was prompted by complaints from neighboring communities whose residents claimed they suffered asthma and other respiratory diseases.

However, no health report had been presented by residents to validate these claims.

Danilo de Guzman, 62, a resident of Lucanin, said his neighbors complained of exposure to coal dust from trucks ferrying coal into the facility. Greg Refraccion, Inquirer Central Luzon