[ Manila Bulletin Online ] August 7, 2008
PUERTO GALERA, Oriental Mindoro -- The construction of the first of three proposed modern sewerage and wastewater-treatment plants, all costing R401 million, has been approved by the Regional Development Council (RDC) to address the problem of worsening water pollution in three coastal zones in this municipality, a favorite tourist destination.
A simple groundbreaking ceremony for the project will be held tomorrow at Sitio Lalaguna, Barangay Sabang, home to 37 world-class dive sites.
The first of the three wastewater-treatment plant, costing ΡΡ107.1 million, will be built in Barangay Sabang in the next few months, Puerto Galera Mayor Hubert A. Dolor said.
The Sabang wastewater treatment project is an initiative of Mayor Dolor, this towns former municipal health officer, who saw that water pollution brought about by untreated wastewater poses a problem in the booming tourism industry of Puerto Galera.
Oriental Mindoro Gov. Arnan C. Panaligan, chairman of the Mimaropa RDC’s sectoral committee on infrastructure development (SCID), has endorsed the construction of the first plant in Barangay Sabang.
Panaligan said that "the development of the tourism industry in Puerto Galera is a top priority program, together with agriculture, of my administration, and that the provincial government must give all-out support for the efforts to conserve the environment.
Citing the importance of Puerto Galera as an economic engine, Panaligan said that the project is in line with the goal of a national government’s plan to develop tourism in an environmentally sustainable way.
Mayor Dolor told the governor, who presided over the SCID meeting, that due to the Puerto Galera’s proximity to the Batangas international port, more than one million tourists visit his town every year.
Three areas in this town -- Barangay Sabang and Sinandigan (Zone 1), San Isidro (White Beach) and Aninuan (Zone 2), and Sto. Nino and Poblacion (Zone 3) -- were found by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to have been contaminated with fecal coliform, a waterborne bacteria that can cause pathogenic diseases to people.
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