Ampucao landfill opposed by residents

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

IT SEEMS the proposed engineered sanitary landfill (ESL) in Ampucao, Itogon won’t become a reality yet with opposition from the residents.

This is despite the City Government banking on the site as dumping ground for residual wastes of the city after the Supreme Court recently told the city to stop dumping at the decommissioned Irisan dumpsite.

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Mayor Mauricio Domogan in his weekly Ugnayang Panlungsod program said the city has been signatory to a Memorandum of Understanding for the creation of an ESL in Ampucao, Itogon, to be utilized not only by the city but towns in Benguet.

However, in a recent follow-up letter of residents in Ampucao, they called on the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to move for the conduct of Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) by Dohwa Engineering Co. Ltd., the Korean developer who proposed the ESL project.

In a letter last December 4, 2011 and followed up again last January 4 to NCIP chairman Bridgitte Hamada-Pawid through NCIP-Cordillera Director Sancho Buquing, more than 200 residents of Sitio Sal-angan in Ampucao called for the conduct of FPIC as they are opposed to the ESL site in their area due to environmental and health concerns.

The residents cited provisions of Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act wherein the local government of Itogon should be responsible for its garbage. However, the Ampucao site, they said, is not included in the ten-year solid waste management plan.

The residents also reiterated in their letter to the NCIP the site for the landfill shall be chosen with regard to the sensitivities of community residents.

Ampucao residents also asserted that the proposed ESL site particularly the entire barangay is declared a watershed area, saying the ESL could be detrimental to the groundwater reservoir of the watershed area.

Aside from the effects on groundwater sources, the residents also expressed concern on the leachate the ESL might release, as well as toxic methane gases the site will emit.

The presence of creeks leading to Sal-angan river in the area, the residents claimed, have also been a cause of concern as the ESL will pollute the source of water used for gardening and animal-raising by residents in the area resulting to diseases and effects on health.

Without the ESL site in Ampucao, and the still uncertain use of the Antamok open pit, the City of Baguio is still having a difficult time looking for a place to dump its increasing residual garbage volume.\

To date, the City Government is still spending millions for the hauling of garbage to a private ESL in Capas, Tarlac.