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BY CAROLYN JANE ABELLO
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Thursday, March 1, 2018
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Boracay bizmen scrimp on wastewater treatment
ILOILO City – Boracay Island businesses may soon find themselves paying a heavy price for their unwillingness to spend for wastewater treatment.
There are wastewater treatment plants in the island but some business establishments do not want to pay to be connected to these sewage systems.
To be connected, an establishment needed to pay P1.3 million, said Henry Chusuey, chairman of the Boracay Foundation.
“They don’t want to pay (so) they just (discharge their wastewater) in(to the) drainage system,” he lamented.
President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to shut down Boracay if it could not be cleaned up in six months.
Chusuey believed Boracay’s wastewater problem could be solved even “in two or three months” if stakeholders only follow environmental rules starting with being connected to the island’s wastewater treatment plants.
The treatment plants are operated by Boracay Island Water Company (BIWC) – in Barangay Manoc-manoc and in Barangay Balabag – and by Boracay Tubi System, Inc.
“If there are no violators, there would be no dirty water in Boracay,” said Chusuey.
BIWC’s sewage treatment plant in Barangay Balabag can process 6.5 million liters of wastewater daily. Its other one in Barangay Manoc-manoc can handle 5 million liters.
BIWC, a partnership between Manila Water and the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (the infrastructure arm of the Department of Tourism), started operating its Balabag wastewater treatment plant after its creation in 2009.
The one in Barangay Manoc-manoc, which cost P570-million to build, was established just this 2016.
With an activated sludge system, the Manoc-manoc wastewater treatment plant ensures that the treated water is safe for marine life and suitable for recreational activities before it is discharged into the sea, according to BIWC.
The Manoc-manoc facility’s output also complies with the Class SB effluent standard of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, it added.
Chusuey said tourism is one Philippine industry that can compete with the best in the world and Boracay as the country’s tourist destination must be preserved.
“We have beautiful islands. Our beaches are the best,” he stressed.
Chusuey lamented the lack of enforcement of environmental laws in Boracay and called out the local government of Malay which has jurisdiction over the island.
“The mayor there…I don’t know why he is not doing anything…maybe the people had supported him or his or his relatives, friends, that’s the problem. Once he stops that and all the (waste)water will go to (the) sewage treatment plan, there will be no dirty water on the drainage, simple as that,” said Chusuey.
The current mayor of Malay is Ciceron Cawaling. He could not be reached for comment as of this writing.
“We cannot afford to lose Boracay…the President is doing his best to stop the deterioration of Boracay…because the local government did not do anything before,” said Chusuey.
President Duterte called Boracay a cesspool.
According to Environment secretary Roy Cimatu, fueling the island’s degradation over the years were runaway development, the influx of people beyond the island’s carrying capacity, poor implementation of environmental regulations, and encroachment of structures./PN
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