Sewage treatment plants required for QC markets

QUEZON City mayor Herbert Bautista has approved an ordinance requiring the city’s private and public markets to install, operate and maintain their own sewage treatment plants.

The “Sewage Treatment Plant of Quezon City Markets” ordinance, authored by 3rd District Councilor Gian Carlo Sotto, was passed on third and final reading by the city council on Nov. 25 and was approved by the mayor on Dec. 20. It is to immediately take effect.

“Noncompliance of this ordinance shall cause the non-issuance of the business permit of the market,” the measure states.

Mandatory

A permit is mandatory to legally operate a business in a city or municipality where it is located.

An establishment which fails to secure a business permit faces automatic closure.

With the sewage treatment plants, the city government wants to address market waste which is similar to domestic sewage mostly composed of fish scales, bones, blood, meat bits, dirt, and filthy water that could pollute streams and rivers if discharged untreated

HIV, AIDS info drive

THE VALENZUELA City government has tied up with a local group of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT) for the prevention of diseases such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). In a statement, the city government said it had tapped the Dignified LGBT Association (DLGBTA), a Valenzuela-based LGBT group, as “peer educators” tasked with disseminating information about HIV and AIDS as well as the programs and services offered by the city government on disease prevention. George Nicolas, DLGBTA’s public relations officer, said the peer educators, who he stressed were also part of the LGBT community, could also foster engagement and organize other gay people in the city. “We have to organize gay people. Though there are existing gay groups in different barangays today, we still need a venue where all these groups can interact,” he said. He expressed hope that the program would lead to steady cooperation between the city government and LGBT groups to promote a common cause. “We need to show other cities that the local government and gay people in Valenzuela City are united in the goal to end the spread of HIV/AIDS,” Nicolas added. For its part, the city government said it has been offering free HIV testing at the city’s Social Hygiene Clinic which has been availed of by than 100 people. to bodies of water.

“The installation of waste water treatment in every market (private and public) is subjecting the markets’ waste water to a process for removing or altering the objectional (sic) constituents of waste water for the purpose of meeting the requirements of the Clean Water Act of 2004 to make it less offensive or dangerous and to produce an all environmentally safe fluid waste water,” the measure states.

Quality assured

Under the ordinance, which merely expounds on a provision of the Green Building Ordinance of 2009 pertaining to sewage treatment plants, existing markets in Quezon City are told to get permits from the Environmental Protection and Waste Management Department (EPWMD), Market Development and Administration Department (MDAD) and the city building official (CBO).

The local agencies will only issue the permits once the private or public market has constructed and operates a sewage treatment plant with a quality waste water treatment process.

Newly-opened markets can only operate once they install sewage treatment plants approved by the EPWMD, the MDAD and the CBO.