IN advance of the city’s plans to overhaul its sewage treatment network, the City Environment and Parks Management Office (CEPMO) has started the process of creating four sewer lines connecting portions of the city to the main sewage treatment system.
CEPMO head Rhenan Diwas has revealed that a P20 million sewer line from the Baguio sewage treatment plant to Lopez Jaena is to undergo bidding, while three other sewer lines connecting Lopez Jaena to San Antonio, and Salud Mitra and Magsaysay Avenue to the central plant are already undergoing implementation.
10 previous sewer line projects have already been funded and completed, according to Diwas.
The implementation of additional sewer lines is part of Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong’s thrust to connect the city to the sewage treatment plant for proper disposal of wastewater.
Previously, the city revealed that it is set to take out a 60 million dollar loan through the State-owned Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the improvement of its sewerage treatment plant.
According to Magalong, the Baguio government was earlier eyeing a much larger $100 million loan from ADB, handled through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for the project.
However, the DENR encountered financial issues in the takeout of the loan, prompting the city to look to other government agencies in the handling of the loan.
The loan is intended for the rehabilitation and upgrade of the city’s sewerage treatment system to lessen the city’s environmental impact on the region’s waterways.
Magalong said that the treatment system is currently already operating beyond capacity, and only a minimal portion of the city’s households are connected to the system, causing uncontrolled discharge of wastewater into the city’s waterways.
As such, under the rehabilitation plan, the city’s households will be compelled to connect to the network.
Magalong added that financial experts are now attempting to calculate the appropriate fees for households that will be connected to the system, which will be used to bolster the payments for the 25-year loan.
