DENR HALTS LANDFILL
Agency tells Aloguinsan mayor’s son to get an ECC before he resumes operating a landfill in a mountain barangay. Where will Cebu City send its garbage for now? Its private hauler has been delivering it to the Aloguinsan site since Jan. 4, 2017.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) 7 ordered the owner of a private sanitary landfill in Aloguinsan to stop accepting garbage being transported to his facility.
DENR 7 discovered that the sanitary landfill in Punay, a mountain barangay, accepted waste even if it still has no environmental compliance certificate (ECC).
The landfill belongs to Rafael Moreno, son of Aloguinsan Mayor Augustus Caesar Moreno.
The DENR 7’s Environmental Management Bureau is set to meet with Moreno in a technical conference on Friday.
For his part, Mayor Moreno said yesterday that the Aloguinsan Municipal Government will follow whatever order the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) will issue regarding the sanitary landfill.
The temporary closure, he said, will affect the Municipal Government in terms of lost potential revenue.
“But why only Cebu City garbage? Do you mean to say the landfill operator can accept solid waste from any area except Cebu City?” said Moreno, who had yet to read the cease-and-desist order from the EMB.
The order, dated Jan. 20, 2017, said that the landfill must “immediately cease and desist from further accepting any garbage… until the approval of its ECC and other environmental permits.” It does not single out garbage from Cebu City.
Interviewed separately, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the concerns of some Carcar City residents on the stench from garbage being transported to Aloguinsan have been resolved.
Osmeña said that Cebu City’s Department of Public Services has talked to Jomara Konstruckt Corp. ( JKC) and asked them to address the matter, since they’re the ones that entered a contract with the private landfill.
The mayor also reminded residents to decide if they want to be a good neighbor to the City or not. Osmeña pointed out that when he was congressman of the south district of Cebu City (20102013), he arranged for P400 million to be spent on the first district of the province, including Carcar City, to fund a road concreting and bridge repair project there.
Cebu City has hired Jomara Konstruckt to haul its garbage, and the latter picked the site in Aloguinsan.
The EMB, however, received complaints about the stench from fluids (called “leachate”) that spilled from the garbage trucks on their way to the southern town.
EMB 7 Director William Cuñado pointed out in his Jan. 20 notice of violation that under Section 4 of Presidential Decree 1586, environmentally critical projects must obtain an ECC.
Earlier this month, the EMB 7 called the younger Moreno’s attention after he started developing the landfill without submitting an Environmental Impact Assessment Study (EIAS) to DENR.
The EIAS is a requirement for the issuance of an ECC.
A DENR memo dated Jan. 13, 2017 from lawyer Unalee Monares of the legal section confirmed that Moreno paid P27,500 as his administrative penalty for operating without an ECC.
He also promised the EMB that he would apply for an ECC.
Since JKC started dumping garbage there, some 500 square meters of the proposed landfill’s area has been filled with garbage, Monares added.
In their investigation report, EMB 7 personnel who inspected the site last Jan. 17 discovered that the landfill started accepting garbage from Jomara Konstruckt last Jan. 4 and 5, 2017.