Permanent SRP dump sites?

REGULAR user of the Cebu South Coastal Road would know in what part of the South Road Properties (SRP) would waft the bad smell from the then reopened Inayawan dump site. The stench was almost always noticeable at night from the Filinvest-owned lots to the bridge down to areas in barangay San Roque in Talisay City, especially after rain fell. This despite the Cebu City Government's effort to control the smell by pouring chemicals into the piled trash.

I thought this would change after the Court of Appeals (CA) ordered the City to cease and desist from bringing the collected trash to Inayawan. But Mayor Tomas Osmeña merely transferred the problem to a lot at the SRP where he set up a dump site masquerading as a “transfer station.” It is also near the Filinvest lots. No wonder that when we passed by the area Saturday evening, the smell was so bad it was almost unbearable. The dump site is now nearer the coastal road.

I could just imagine what the government offices and establishments near the “transfer station” are enduring. If they suffered from the smell from the Inayawan dump site which is far away, how much more from the smell from the “transfer station,” which is closer to them? At least the Inayawan facility was once a sanitary landfill. This “transfer station” is but reclaimed lot, and nothing else.

Here's the problem. I initially thought that the solid waste disposal woes would magically disappear once a service provider is hired to bring the accumulated trash in the SRP lot to a legitimate landfill outside the city. But two weeks after the CA order was issued, the Cebu City Government has still to execute a contract with a service provider. In the meantime, garbage has continued to pile up there. Can the service provider make up for lost time once it starts its work?

Worse, the hiring of a service provider would only be for a short period of a few weeks because funds allocated for the services' purchase were limited. A bigger appropriation is needed to hire a service provider for a longer period of time. If the mayor again, for one reason or another, fails to act with haste on the matter, then trash will continue to accumulate at the SRP lot. This must be why Osmeña said two more “transfer stations” (open dump sites) will be set up at the SRP soon.

If this happens, what would be the action of the Enviromental Management Bureau (EMB) 7? The agency has ordered the city government to cease and desist from dumping garbage in the SRP “transfer station” noting that its use violated Presidential Decree 1586, which establishes an Environmental Impact Statement System, and Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000. But the mayor has so far defied the order citing need.

What could happen is that if the mayor continues to stall by not acting with haste to solve the city's solid waste disposal problem and EMB 7 could not enforce its cease and desist order, then what started as a “temporary” SRP dump site could end up being permanent. And more of such dump sites could sprout in the SRP soon. Which also means that government offices and establishments and coastal road users would continue to endure the stench from those “transfer stations.”

What a sad way to welcome 2017.