ENVIRONMENT Secretary Roy Cimatu on Wednesday urged owners and operators of tourist spots nationwide to plan for their sewerage and septage systems to avoid their areas from suffering the fate of the world-famous Boracay Island in Aklan.
Cimatu said many major tourist attractions, such as several towns along Batangas’ Taal Volcano protected landscape region and Palawan, are examples of places that might need the help of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources with their sewerage systems.
“Let us not wait until it is too late,” he said.
Under the national septage and sewerage management plan, cities and first-class municipalities could avail of a 50-percent grant from the national government to help build their sewerage system.
“We need to put in the investment in the sewage systems of these places now while we still can so that these places can avoid the problems facing Boracay today. It is better to build sewage treatment facilities now than face a catastrophe later,” Cimatu said.
He called on local government units to take advantage of the government grant immediately.
“The grant is there, but there are no takers because there are no benefits for them. We must keep in mind that we are doing this for the environment, and for the benefit of the people,” he said.
The DENR said many tourism hotspots nationwide are neither in cities nor in first-class municipalities, and Cimatu said the agency is willing to help them in building cleaner areas.
“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 the construction costs on to the people’s water bills,” he added.
For the longest time, Boracay has been hounded by the problem of businesses and residents discharging waste water, including untreated sewage, into open bodies of water, which eventually reaches the sea, the department said in a statement.
The waste water from households and commercial establishments must be channeled to a sewage treatment plant to be cleaned before being released to the environment.
In the case of Boracay, the DENR estimated about 17.5 million liters of waste water is generated in the island every day. Only about half of this volume is treated properly, while the other half is discharged untreated.
Up to 40 percent of the untreated waste water comes from private homes, while the rest comes from business establishments.
According to Cimatu, Boracay has two sewage treatment plants, but these are not yet enough to cover the entire island.
Out of the 2,600 businesses on the island, 834 of them have been discharging wastewater without proper treatment, the DENR said.