DENR calls for sewage facilities installation in tourist destinations

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is calling for the crafting of a plan for sewerage and septic systems in tourist spots as part of the government’s cleanup of major destinations.

“We need to invest in sewage systems while we still can so that these places can avoid the problems faced by Boracay today. It is better to build sewage treatment facilities now than face a catastrophe later,” Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu said recently.

He said local governments should take advantage of the National Septage and Sewerage Management Plan under which cities and first-class municipalities can avail themselves of a 50-percent grant from the national government to help build their sewerage systems.

“The grant is there, but there are no takers because there are no benefits for them,” Cimatu said.

Although many tourism spots are neither in cities nor in first class municipalities, the DENR is still willing to help address the issue.

“We really need to think of how we can help these local government units build their own septic and sewerage systems, instead of relying on the local water suppliers to do this, which might pass on the construction costs to the people’s water bills,” he said.

Tourist attractions, such as some municipalities along the Taal Volcano Protected Landscape region and in Palawan, are examples of places that might need help with sewerage systems.

In the case of Boracay, the DENR estimates that around 17.5 million liters of wastewater are generated on the island every day.

Of this volume, only about half is treated properly. About 30 to 40 percent of the untreated wastewater comes from private homes, while the rest is said to come from business establishments.

“Boracay has two sewage treatment plants, but it is not yet enough to cover the entire island. About 834 out of some 2,600 businesses on the island have been identified as discharging wastewater without proper treatment,” Cimatu said.

The DENR mission team has started its work to rehabilitate Boracay. The team has been divided into six groups and is surveying different areas of the island, looking for violations such as missing environmental compliance certificates and failure to connect to sewage treatment plants.

“We are doing a saturation drive of all establishments this week. The aim is to plug the biggest leaks and to find out where the untreated water comes from,” Cimatu said.

And while Boracay is facing the challenge of cleaning up wastewater, the environment chief noted that the island’s sewerage management could be a model for other tourist spots.

The island’s water concessionaire, Boracay Island Water Corp., is a partnership between the Department of Tourism’s Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority and Ayala Corp.’s Manila Water Co. Inc.

“Boracay is actually ahead of the curve when it comes to sewage treatment, but the challenge now is to ensure that the entire island is connected to it. Hopefully we can do that by 2020 or 2022,” Cimatu said.