Dagupan draws up action plan for Sinocalan river system rehab

By Venus H. Sarmiento

Tuesday 12th of June 2012

DAGUPAN CITY, June 12 (PIA) -- The governing board of the Sinocalan river system Water Quality Management Area (WQMA) here has drawn up an action plan that would govern the speedy rehabilitation of the watercourse.

In a statement released by the City Information Office, the multi-sectoral board has formed two ad hoc committees that would devise rules and establish the regulations and plan for the project in a meeting last June 6 at the City Mayor’s Office conference room.

Among the issues the board aims to resolve are disposal of garbage in rivers, river bank encroachment, relocation of settlers along the riverbanks, open defecation, effluence of septic tanks, seepage of untreated wastewater from households, commercial establishments and piggeries and siltation.

City Agriculturist Emma Molina, one of the city’s representatives in the board, said the governing rules will be expressed in the action plan to address the concerns in revitalizing the river area.

Representing the action plan panel was city health officer Leonard Carbonell while executive secretary to the Mayor Albertini De Guzman served as the city’s representative in the governing rules committee.

Also present during the conference were Department of Natural Resources-Environmental Management Board (DENR-EMB) Region I director Joel Salvador and representatives from concerned local and national government and non-government agencies and the academe.

The CIO report added that the teams will present the plan on June 14 in preparation for the executive committee meeting on June 15.

The local WQMA was instituted by DENR to focus interventions on specific water quality issues of the Sinocalan river system that snakes through the municipalities of Binalonan, Sta. Barbara, Calasiao, Mangaldan, Malasiqui and Binmaley and the cities of Urdaneta, San Carlos and Dagupan. (ANL/VHS-PIA 1 Pangasinan with reports from CIO)