(Continued from July 19, 2018)
I HAVE no doubt in my mind that what happened in Boracay has happened in many other towns and cities and whatever has happened is still happening now in many other places. Just to be clear, Boracay is an island that is part of the town of Malay in Aklan Province.
What that means is that Boracay is not an island by itself so to speak, because it has a municipal government that is supposed to take responsibility over it.
As it is supposed to be therefore, the mainland town of Malay is supposed to have its own sewerage system, aside from a separate sewerage system that should have been built in Boracay. As it happened, no sewerage systems were built in the island and in the mainland, indicating gross negligence among the local officials, surely involving many sets of them over years.
As it surely happened, all of the hotels and resorts in Boracay built their own septic tanks and some of them might have seen the wisdom of building a sewerage treatment plant (STP).
In all probability, most of them may have gotten their Environmental Clearance Certificates (ECCs) simply because they had septic tanks, and even if they did not have their own STPs.
To be fair to all the hotels and resorts there however, it is the municipal government that was supposed to build a complete sewerage system, with an STP being a crucial part of it. What that means is that a municipality is not really compliant if it does not have a complete sewerage system, even if it has an STP.
Going fast forward to the present times, what is needed in Boracay now is a complete sewerage system that includes an STP, and that system should service the entire municipality, not just some of the hotels and resorts.
Not unless a complete sewerage system is built in Boracay, the problem of water contamination will continue. Not unless the dependence on septic tanks will not stop, the leakage will always continue to threaten the aquifer. Not unless local officials will know the difference between drainage and sewerage, we could perhaps expect a few changes only.
First of all however, they should also know the difference between a dumpsite and a landfill, because the two are not one and the same. Either way however, the leakages from both are also causing damage to the aquifer.
In theory, a landfill may be less harmful to the aquifer if it is properly built, but more often than not, the layers placed underneath are not enough to prevent the seepage or the leaching into the aquifer. There are too many ways to overwhelm the aquifer, but all of them pollutes the water that we are supposed to drink. (iseneres@yahoo.com/PN)
