Tempest in a teapot

"Properly harvested and used, dolomite can be life-enhancing."

Here’s what respected journalist and blogger Apa Ongpin said in his Facebook page about the “Manila Bay white sand controversy” which has been hitting the headlines for some days now:

“There’s been a lot of noise, since yesterday, about a pile of sand on Roxas Boulevard. I guess many people are fed up and disgusted with the gross incompetence, lies and insincerity displayed by this government in so many areas, to the point where in their eyes, everything this regime does is wrong. It’s just a pile of sand, but it has begun to assume the proportions of the Sierra Madre..The point of this piece is not to defend the government’s actions, but try to examine this issue a little more objectively. In fact, let’s talk about science, and numbers…”

Indeed, if all that the critics have against this pile of sand, as Ongpin noted, is about the potential – and I emphasize potential here – health problems this can bring about then they better look elsewhere. The sand cover is not actually sand as in powdery sand like Boracay’s although it may have the same ‘feel” but tiny dolomite stones or pulverized dolomite boulders as the scientists and engineers would describe them. These are the same kind of “sand/stones” used in such famous waterfronts as Dubai’s Palm Island, Shangrila Hotel and Plantation Resort in Cebu and even parts of Hawaii’s Waikiki Beach.

To date, we have yet to be told about the ‘health issues” which may have afflicted the millions of people who have swam, walked on and even stayed in these places.

In fact, scientific journals point out that dolomite has been used for “…acid neutralization in the chemical industry, in stream restoration projects and as a soil conditioner.” As a magnesium source it has also been used for acid neutralization in the chemical industry, in stream restoration projects, and as a soil conditioner. It is also used as a source of magnesia, a feed additive for livestock and “..together with limestone is applied to soils…to correct soil acidity, add calcium and magnesium, improve soil structure, and maintain or promote conditions favorable for the utilization of soil nutrients by plants and for the growth of desirable soil organisms…”

So, properly harvested and used, dolomite can be life enhancing as what it is intended to achieve as mandated under the executive order creating the multi agency, multi year Manila Bay Rehabilitation Program. That task group which started work sometime in 2018, is composed of at least 11 national government agencies and the local government units surrounding the entire Manila Bay region from Cavite to Bataan. This 500-meter “baywalk” along the stretch of Manila Bay from the yacht club to the US Embassy is just a tiny, weeny portion of this humongous program which in its totality includes the clean up of all waterways draining into the bay, the relocation of informal settlers along these waterways.

Reclaiming of all easements along these systems which may involve the closing of factories and setting up of sewage treatment plants and of course, accelerating the full construction of the sewerage system for Mega Manila as provided for under the agreements with the two MWSS concessionaires, Manila Water and Maynilad.

By the way, the fresh impetus to have an organized effort to clean up the bay and make the entire Mega Manila a more livable place was the result of the final call issued by the courts to have the original Supreme Court continuing mandamus ruling in 2008 on the petition by a group of concerned citizens for the issuance of a writ of kalikasan. The decision ordered the government to undertake the comprehensive Manila Bay rehabilitation. Since that time to the present, efforts to have such a program in place on a sustained basis have seen limited success. Hopefully, this time around we will have a more concrete, sustainable push to get things going. But people specially the critics would like to concentrate on this pile of sand, as Ongpin noted.

It will be good for the public to know that this “beach nourishment” portion which is the engineering intervention term for this stretch is not just for beautification purposes as the critics insist. It is actually meant to return the shoreline to a more ‘swimmable’ state after the pile of garbage and sediment eight to ten meter deep which used to be there were removed and the bottom sand restored. With the pulverized dolomite boulders on top, the engineers tell us, the shore cover will be more stable and the waters therein given more time to be nourished and returned to more acceptable and swimmable levels.

Truth be told, the Manila Bay waters, specially within several meters of the shoreline, have been declared unbearably hazardous to health. In many areas that “beach” included, as one scientist noted, liquid feces. In 2018, at the start of the project, the inshore level of fecal coliform contamination found on the small strip of beach was 54,000,000 mpn per 100 ml. of water (the maximum safe level standard for swimming is on the average just 200 mpn per 100 ml. “MPN” or “Most Probable Number”. So, 54 million mpn is 270,000 times as much fecal coliform bacteria as that considered safe, which is 200. That was just for that “beach” area.

The raw water outlet emptying into the Manila Yacht Club basin measured at 210 million mpn/ 100 ml which is almost a million times the safe level. The other raw water outlet covering the areas around the Aristocrat restaurant was even worse as it measured 160 million mpn/100 ml.

We are now told of substantial drops in the coliform levels in these areas with the installation of a huge, almost a four floor building size sewerage treatment plant (STP) by the yacht club. It will, of course, take years before the entire bay region’s waters will be safer to wade in or even swim. But for that “beach” it will probably be swimmable by next quarter with social distancing.

Finally, if the critics are haranguing all of us with the cost they should be told. The P340 million or so allocated is for the entire project, which includes emptying the area of the piled up debris, engineering intervention, employment of geo tubes and related works to ensure that the sand will not be washed away at the first wave of a typhoon. It is just like putting up a breakwater around that area. The allotted amount for that “white sand” is about six to 10 percent of the entire project cost.

The bleeding hearts can cry to their hearts’ content that this amount should have been used elsewhere especially as we are in a pandemic this is all that we can say: the pandemic should not be used as an excuse not to do the needed works whether it is this portion of the entire program or others which have to be put in place precisely to make our communities better places to live in. The amount allocated is no more than the amount which some offices have not even spent for their mandated use.

Take the P192 million unused medical aid in the Office of the Vice President or the billions in other agencies which are being eyed to be “saved” for possible conversion into “bonuses” by year end.

Truly, if these are all the arguments the critics could throw at this effort, I say “sorry na lang.” As those who truly care and are very conscious of the real facts and nothing but would say the “disproportionate reaction of anger, concern, or displeasure over this minor matter smacks of hypocrisy of the highest order.”

As a friend of mine now based in the States texted right after having been apprised of the facts said: “..these contrived protests, these holier-than-thou tantrums, the self-serving ad hominem, these underhanded operations are nothing but a tempest in a teapot stoked by a coordinated campaign of misinformation and politicking..which can only add to the hazards the people are now experiencing under the pandemic..these are more pernicious and hazardous to the public good.”