Six hundred thousand tons–that’s how much garbage San Miguel Corporation (SMC) plans to extract from Pasig River annually for the next five years once it kicks off its cleanup campaign at the river this April.
A statement from SMC Monday, March 8 revealed that two new dredging equipment capable of pulling such amount of silt and solid waste out of the river had just arrived.
“Through the years, Pasig River has become narrower and shallower because of accumulated silt and waste. By cleaning and widening it, we will be able to increase its capacity to keep water flowing within its banks especially during heavy rains,” SMC President Ramon S. Ang said. SMC, together with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and other concerned government units, is targeting to extract 50,000 tons of waste per month from the river.
“After a thorough assessment of Pasig River, we identified sections where the depth of water has been reduced to as little as one meter. These are the most critical portions of the river that cause widespread flooding,”Ang said.
For the Pasig River to effectively serve its purpose of channeling flood waters out to the Manila Bay, its depth should at least be 10 meters, Ang said.
“But garbage and silt over the many decades have reduced this to just one meter in these areas, clogging the river and causing water to overflow everywhere.”
SMC is already in the middle of another major river cleanup—its five-year, P1-billion corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative to dredge and clean the 27-kilometer Tullahan-Tinajeros River System, which benefits other flood-prone areas such as Malabon and Navotas.
“We have had considerable experience in cleaning up rivers, primarily because of Tullahan, and also our successful initiatives to clean up rivers below Skyway 3. (We) are even putting in more resources and buying more equipment for the Tullahan initiative. We are also looking to do this for rivers in Bulacan. Naturally, cleaning up the Pasig River is a big goal that we do not take lightly,” Ang said.
“There have been many noteworthy efforts that have been initiated in the past, in order to rehabilitate the Pasig River. Unfortunately, it has always been a very costly undertaking. Now that San Miguel has a chance to help, we will give it our all,” added the SMC head honcho.
Launched in early 2020, with work only fully commencing following the lifting of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), the Tullahan project is seen to help solve flooding in Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela, Caloocan, Quezon City, as well as Bulacan province, for the long-term.
At the end of 2020, SMC reported that it had extracted a total of 83,600 metric tons (MTs) of garbage and silt from the section of the river located in Malabon and Navotas.
SMC has since committed to put in more resources and acquire more heavy machinery for the effort.
During the series of typhoons that hit Luzon and Metro Manila at the tailend 2020, both flood-prone cities reported no major flooding incidents despite increased water volume.
This is largely seen as the combined result of having effective pumping stations and the ongoing Tullahan cleanup by SMC.
Article and Photo originally posted by Manila Bulletin last March 8 2021 6:19pm and written by Elson Quismorio.
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