Thursday, June 28, 2007 ‘Sewerage not priority of LGUs’ By Carlo P. Mallo
PUTTING up sewage and wastewater treatment facilities for domestic wastes is not top priority for a lot of local government units (LGUs) because it is too expensive.
A World Health Organization (WHO) representative, Jose Augusto Hueb, however, insists this is not true, saying proper sewerage and wastewater treatment facilities are one of the best investments that a local government can do.
"For every one dollar invested in a wastewater treatment facility, one will get a return of investment of about thirty dollars," Hueb said.
He said wastewater treatment facilities cut down on the prevalence of water borne diseases. He emphasized preventing these diseases would cost the government much less compared to the cost it would take for the treatment of such.
For his part, Davao City Councilor Leonardo R. Avila III said the bigger priority now is solid waste management. Once the city tackles that, then it can focus its resources on waste water.
The city's attempt at solid waste management from the source hit a snag as an intensified drive for waste segregation and recycling at the barangay level last year failed.
Even without the wastewater facilities, however, Avila remains confident that Davao Gulf will remain biologically healthy and will not become another Manila Bay in the near future.
"We will not reach that level, I assure you," Avila said as there are individual LGU efforts being done to stem pollution and marine life degradation.
Avila added that the City Council is not losing sight of having a waste water treatment facility in the city.
"We know that it is of great importance for us and the environment," Avila said.
That wastewater treatment facilities are priced beyond the reach of LGUs was also the sentiment of the Environmental Management Board regional technical director of Southwestern Mindanao.
Worse, EMB RTD Tongkos Saikol said hiring sanitary inspectors is not even a priority for LGUs. Thus, there are very few sanitary inspectors who have to travel great distance while LGU official are not even interested to add to their numbers.
But a consultant from the World Bank begged to disagree.
Jemma Sy, World Bank representative, said wastewater treatment facilities are one of their priority projects and that there are a lot of financial windows that would allow local governments to source funds for such projects.
"The funding is there, but it is not the priority of local governments these days," Sy said.
A Regional Sanitation Forum of the Department of Health disclosed the various effects of not having a waste water treatment facility in a highly urbanized area like that of Davao.
The forum revealed that more than 300,000 tons of wastes are dumped daily into the various bodies of water in the country. Aggressive action must be done by everyone before it is too late.
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