THERE is hope that the proposed modern sanitary landfill in Bayambang town can still be realized.

No less than the Department of Environment and Natural Resources categorically denied that the project, which was proposed and subjected to a series of public hearings last year, was already shelved.

Samuel Songcuan, community environment and natural resources officer of Pangasinan, said it is unfair to say that the proposed multi-million peso sanitary landfill in Bayambang town was already deemed a failure as the project has not yet started.

“Hindi pa nagsisimula ang landfill doon kaya hindi natin masasabi na failure (The landfill project there has yet to start so we can’t say that it is already a failure).”

The proposed landfill project will be put up by the private firm. Waste Integrated Network System (WINS) headed by Abelardo Palad as president, on an initial 30 hectare area, with a provision for expansion in another 60 hectares of land.

WINS, backed up by big industrialists from Manila and Tarlac, will put up the project in its own property in Bayambang town.

Songcuan said he is aware that the social acceptability of the project from the barangay, municipal to the provincial levels had been completed and passed through legal process.

“I don’t think that the change of the provincial and municipal administrations can derail the project because the new officials also want to see a better solid waste management system for their localities,” he said.

On the other hand, the past provincial board of Pangasinan seemed to have just sat down on the resolution of the Bayambang municipal council endorsing the project, and so this was deemed approved, according to the rules of that body.

The project was conceived during the incumbency of Bayambang Mayor Leocadio de Vera who already completed his last term of office.

At the beginning of his term, new Bayambang Mayor Ricardo Camacho indicated he will not let the sanitary landfill rise in his town if it will accommodate wastes from adjacent towns and provinces.

He admitted that he sided with the oppositors to the project since this was first proposed.

Governor Espino, a native of the adjacent town of Bautista, has not yet indicated if he is going to support the establishment of the sanitary landfill in Bayambang.

The governor is however actively seeking more investments in Pangasinan and a sanitary landfill could be a prelude to the entry of more investors to the province.

Songcuan said Dagupan City also attempted to put up its own sanitary landfill but the latter proposal never reached first base for one reason or another.