BACOLOD City — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) granted the San Carlos Bioenergy, Inc. in San Carlos City a permit to barge its wastewater into an appropriate dumping area.
The permit will give the bio-ethanol plant three months to do this, according to Vicente Losbañes, head of the DENR Provincial Environmental Management Unit.
Jojo Salvador, spokesperson for San Carlos Bioenergy, Inc., said they will dump their wastewater at a DENR-designated area in Nasu Point behind Palawan.
Salvador said they will start the operation, which will be monitored by the DENR and the Philippine Coast Guard, on May 2.
DENR earlier issued a notice of violation to the bio-ethanol plant for the failure of its treated wastewater to meet agency standards.
Under DENR Administrative Order No. 35 series of 1990, or the Revised Effluent Regulations of 1990, industrial or domestic sewage effluent shall be discharged into Class AA and SA waters to avoid the deterioration of the quality of the receiving body of water.
The order also said no new industrial plant with high waste load potential shall discharge into a body of water, whose dilution or assimilative capacity during dry weather is insufficient, to maintain the water’s prescribed quality according to usage or classification
No person shall discharge, wholly or partially, untreated or inadequately treated industrial effluents directly into bodies of water or through the use of bypass canals and/or pumps and other unauthorized means, except upon prior approval of the DENR secretary, it said.
The notice of violation, issued after a wastewater spill in January, required the plant to pay a fine of P10,000 per day until its wastewater meets DENR standards.
Salvador said they were “expecting the decomposition process, which emits foul odor, [to] disappear in two weeks.”
He said about half of the canals that overflowed and caused the foul odor have almost dried up.
“Organic matters [have] almost totally decomposed,” he said, adding that the stink has minimized now.
Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. had complained that the P10,000-per-day fine for San Carlos Bioenergy, Inc. was “too small.” It had to be increased if the foul odor continues, he stressed.
/PN
