By Greg G. Deligero
The approval for special use zone applications over the Dumoy aquifer will now mainly depend on the consent of the Davao City Water District (DCWD).
According to Davao City Planning and Development Coordinator Roberto P. Alabado III, the city government’s executive department—through the City Development Council chaired by Davao City Mayor Sara Z. Duterte—endorsed the applications to the Sangguniang Panlungsod after the project proponents complied with all the “documentary requirements” in reclassifying the lands for memorial park development.
Three memorial parks are being proposed to be established over the Davao City’s biggest source of drinking water—the Dumoy aquifer and its vicinity.
One of three proposed cemeteries is the Fair Fields Memorial Park (FFMP) whose application covers a six-hectare property owned by Francis Ledesma, a top hotel executive, in Barangay Baliok. The other two proposed cemeteries are the Eternal Gardens Memorial Park owned by a cooperative on a 1.6-hectare area in Barangay Lubogan and the Forest Lake Memorial Park in sitio Ulas in Barangay Talomo.
Alabado said the applicants for land reclassification—from protected residential zone to protected special use zone—have all secured the necessary documentary requirements, including clearances from the City Health Office, City Environment and Natural Resources Office, Mines and Geosciences Bureau and certificates of no objection from the barangays and neighboring property owners.
The DCWD has also issued three separate certifications that the proposed cemeteries are “located on ground where the water table is not higher than 4.5 meters (13.5 feet) below the ground surface” in compliance with the allowable limit set by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB).
A typical burial ground (grave) is only 6 feet deep. The water table in the Dumoy aquifer and its vicinity starts 60 feet from the surface.
The DCWD, however, stated in its certifications that “more solid and liquid waste disposal facilities are to be constructed in such a way that they will not infiltrate the aquifer region and that all water conveyances will all be water tight.”
Alabado said the paramount concern of the city government “is to protect the area from any kind of development that will contaminate the water sources.”
But determining whether development will contaminate the water, according to Alabado, will rely mainly on the authority and expertise of DCWD, the main stakeholder, “being the owner of water production wells and is into the water business.”
“It is now up to the DCWD to tell us how there will be contamination, what are the mitigating measures against contamination, whether the measures are adequate or not, and what needs to be done otherwise,” he added.
