Septage ordinance good for business

Davao City’s Times Beach may be the nearest and the cheapest body of water you can enjoy in during this summer, but its high coliform level continue to discourage swimmers who are concerned about health and sanitation. After all, a World Bank Environmntal Assessment Report indicates that at least nine beaches in the city are considered health risks.
The report, which indicates that some beaches along the area contain bacteria beyond the maximum tolerable limits, only confirms tests conducted in the area as early as 1985. The presence of coliform in the said beaches is blamed on the absence of a proper sewerage system in the city.
All this is expected to change with the approval on third and final reading of the Septage and Sewerage Management Ordinance of Davao City, authored by councilor Leonardo Avila III.
“The ordinance aims to reduce the prevalence of water-borne diseases and in effect minimizes the pollution of our bodies of water,” Avila said. The ordinance is actually a legislative, albeit an indirect, response to Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s directive towards government offices, particularly to the City Environment and Natural Resources and the City Health office, to act on the concern.
Such directive was issued by the mayor as early as 2006 after his attention was called by the Department of Health Center for Health Development-Regional Inter-Agency Committee on Environmental Health as to the state of Davao City’s waters. At that time, the Environmental Management Bureau tested the waters of 15 beaches and discovered that nine of them failed the test.
“The ordinance aims to ensure the protection of public health and the environment,” Avila said. This can be done, he said, through the proper collection of septage, as well as its transport, storage, treatment and disposal.
Section 2 of the ordinance also encourages the city’s academic institutions to integrate septage and sewerage management issues, as well as those pertaining to water resource conservation into their curricula.
With the approval of the ordinance, all building plans for residential, commercial and industrial shall conform to the standard specifications provided by the ordinance, for the design of the sanitary plumbing and septic tank.  The specifications, he said, are actually in accordance with the provisions of the Revised National Plumbing Code of the Philippines and the National Building Code.
One of the specifications in building a septic tank prohibits its construction under any building as well as in areas within 25 meters from any existing source of water supply. Those who live in typical low-cost housing areas where there is inadequate land space, a communal septic tank should be constructed.
For existing septic tanks, these should be upgraded to comply with the specifications. If that is not possible, he said, the septic tanks should be completely desluged. The owners are however required to construct new septic tanks within one year after the Ordinance takes effect.
“Hindi naman expensive ang pag desludge…the going rate is from P1,500 to P2,000, depende kun gaano kalaki ng septic tank (desludging the septic tanks is not really expensive and ranges between P1,500 to P2,000 depending on their size),” Avila said. Unknown to most homeowners, their septic tanks should be desludged every five years, and this should be done only by an accredited service provider.
What is, however, expensive is the septage treatment facility which is one of the disposal methods required by the Ordinance, the other being a sanitary landfill. “The city may undertake the construction of the septage treatment facility which is less costly than the landfill,” he added.
Avila said some people may be resistant to the Ordinance at first because it is something new, but “in the long run it will be good for the people as this will lessen the coleforms in the waters.
“A law that provides for the cleaning and disposal of septage and sewerage systems is a must for a highly urbanized city like Davao,” he said. The Clean Water Act mandates all local government units to have a septage of sewerage program within five years after the law took effect and that is around now, he added.
Avila said the proper disposal of the city’s wastes is not only good for the people’s health in general, but it is also good for business. Expected to benefit from the ordinance is the city’s tourism sector as well as hundreds of Dabawenyos who prefer to swim for less, even for free.  [Lovely A. Carillo]