CITY SEEKS HELP IN TREATING JAIL H20

Cebu City is in talks with a private company that used to treat the waste water inside the City Jail but had stopped because the City allegedly owed it some P700,000

The Cebu City Government will revive its contract with a private service provider for the processing of septic wastes inside the Cebu City Jail.

Francisco “Bimbo” Fernandez, executive assistant II of the Office of the Mayor, said this will address the dumping of septic wastes in a nearby river.

The city jail, along with the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC), was earlier found by the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) 7 to have been disposing of the waste from their overfilled septic tanks into the river.

That was believed to have been the source of the stench in Langub Shrine, about which the residents of Barangay Guadalupe have complained.

In an interview yesterday, Fernandez said the City asked Mactan Rock Industries Inc. to submit a proposal on how they will start operating and managing again their wastewater treatment facility inside the jail.

Overhauling Mactan Rock’s equipment, he said, was first raised when Fernandez, former councilor Nida Cabrera and the officials of the EMB 7 and city jail met a few weeks ago.

According to Fernandez, Mactan Rock stopped processing the waste water inside the prison because of the City’s unpaid obligation amounting to P700,000.

“We are reviving our contract with them with the assurance that we will also help them get paid,” he said.

The wastewater treatment plant had not been used because it was damaged, Fernandez added. For the meantime, Fernandez said that the City has declogged the septic tanks inside the jail.

As to the septic wastes generated by the CPDRC, Fernandez said he will talk to officials of the Provincial Government and offer that the facility’s wastes be collected by the City. It will then be dumped in the City’s septage management plant in the North Reclamation Area.

Supt. Jessie Calumpang, Cebu City Jail warden, has denied that their facility released waste water to the creek.

But Calumpang admitted their waste water isn’t treated since their treatment facility has bogged down.