[ Malaya.com.ph ] December 3, 2010
Subic Water and Sewerage Co. Inc. (Subicwater), a private utility firm operating in the Subic Freeport and Olongapo City, inaugurated on Thursday a sewage treatment plant worth $1 million.
The new treatment plant brings the number of Subicwater’s sewage treatment facilities to six.
The inauguration, which was held inside the Subicwater compound, was attended by Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) chairman Feliciano Salonga, Subicwater chairman Herbert Consunji, Subic Bay Freeport Chamber of Commerce president Danny Piano, SBMA Ecology Center manager Amethya dela Llana-Koval, and Subicwater president Lex Magrata, who also represented the city of Olongapo.
According to Subicwater officials, the new facility employs the sequencing batch reactor technology and is capable of handling five million liters of wastewater daily.
The facility is expected to treat 64 percent of the sewage being generated at the central business district of the Subic Freeport.
"As we adhere to the Clean Water Act of 2004, the people can expect Subicwater to push for the construction of more sewage treatment plants in the Subic Bay Freeport and in the City of Olongapo," Consunji said.
Subicwater officials also said a sewerage master plan for the free port and the adjacent city of Olongapo is currently in the works.
The long-term target, they added, is to totally eliminate the threat posed by untreated wastewater, which environmentalists point out as the greatest contributor to both surface and ground water pollution.
Subicwater implemented the first built-operate-and-transfer scheme for a water and sewerage system in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, taking over the operation of the water supply and sewerage system in the freeport in 1997.
The firm was formed by a joint-venture agreement in 1996 among the SBMA, Biwater PLC of Great Britain, DM Consunji Inc., and the now-defunct Olongapo City Water District.
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