BAGUIO CITY — The city government here ordered at least 300 informal settlers within the over 7.4-hectare open dumpsite in Barangay Irisan so that it could temporarily use the space as a dumping area while it is working on the establishment of its permanent sanitary landfill in Sto. Tomas Apugan or in Alimang, Poblacion, Sablan, Benguet.

The decision of the local government to evict the squatters within the open dumpsite came after both the executive and legislative departments could not get their acts together for the immediate put up of the landfill facility to address the garbage crisis in this mountain resort city.

The whole open dumpsite area has a total area of 7.4 hectares, 2.5 hectares of which was used for its open dumpsite before it was closed recently and the rest occupied by squatters.

Considering the failure of the city council to appropriate P26 million for the hauling of garbage outside the city, officials are inclined to evict the squatters the soonest possible time so that the remaining space could be developed into a temporary open dumpsite for the over 300 tons of garbage collected from the city’s 128 barangays.

According to the local solid waste management board, the city must use the available space for its dumpsite while negotiations are still underway with concerned parties in order to determine the permanent site where to construct the long overdue sanitary landfill.

With the adoption of the remaining option, dozens of government-owned trucks started to haul the piled up garbage in the city’s central business district and the different barangays in order to put an end to the dilemma of residents over the uncollected garbage for the past several weeks.

If the illegal settlers will not voluntarily vacate the public land, the local government will be forced to implement the demolition of multi-million structures and shanties erected around the dumpsite so that there will be more space for garbage.

The city government already notified the National Solid Waste Commission (NSWC) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) of its desire to use the remaining spaces within the Irisan open dumpsite as its temporary dumping area while working out the permanent site for its engineered sanitary landfill in the coming months.

However, the Commission directed the local government to come out with a technical study showing there are still some spaces within the Irisan dumpsite that could be used as a temporary dumpsite before they could act on the matter.