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Saturday, October 02, 2004
Copper smelter completes projects for environment
LOCATED south of the acid plant, the P8-million dike enclosure the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) of Pasar Corp. was inaugurated last Sept. 23.
This coincided with the quarterly visit of the Multi-partite Monitoring Team of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
EMB-Region 8 Director Fermin D. Weygan, pollution control division chief Reynaldo Barra and representatives from nongovernment organizations and the local government unit composed the monitoring team.
Tranquilino Sanchez Jr., senior manager of the EPD, said the 450-meter-long dike enclosure was built mainly for the protection of the mangroves in the surrounding area.
The project seeks to reconstruct the beach area the way it was before the Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corp. (Pasar) started operations there in the early 1980s. It also aims to recover the iron concentrates carried away together with the silt.
The dike, closed at both ends, has given way to a settling pond of two hectares, where the water being discharged—and which used to go directly to the sea—could undergo cooling and cleansing; thus, mitigating its negative effects on the mangroves and the marine environment as a whole.
Sanchez says this is proof of Pasar’s commitment to the preservation of the marine environment.
Since Pasar’s privatization, a total of $20 million has been allotted by the company to taking care of the environment.
Pasar also acquired a P7.5 million UltraVac machine designed to suck metal-bearing dust that would, in turn, be recycled. The machine would be assigned at the smelting plant to clean the dust in the area.
(October 2, 2004 issue)
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