- MITCH M. LIPA
The Provincial Environment and Management Office has formed two teams to shortly conduct ground inspection of the different quarry sites in Negros Occidental.
Lawyer Danilo Amisola, PEMO head, said they are waiting for the go- signal of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan’s Committee on Environment and Natural Resources when exactly to start the inspection.
Amisola said they will start with the Third District, where there are currently 37 quarry permittees.
Their operations, Amisola said, are mostly in the hinterland barangays of Talisay, Silay, E.B. Magalona, Victorias and Murcia.
Most of them have “active operations”, he added.
The PEMO inspection teams would like to see the actual areas of operations to determine if soil extraction is covered under their existing permits.
Amisola said his office noted that a common violation of permittees is that they operate outside the area, where they are only allowed to quarry.
It is, therefore, a clear violation as it is tantamount to illegal extraction, he pointed out.
Another common violation is the use of a “recycled permit” to transport their products, he said.
The purpose of the ground site inspection is to determine if, indeed, the quarry operations in the Third District, contributed to the Jan. 1 and Jan. 8 floods that displaced thousands of Third District residents.
Affected local government units have since declared a state of calamity.
Amisola said there are currently 185 quarry permittees in the province, some of them are “special permits” issued to local government units upon their request for use in specific government projects.
He added that in every LGU and barangay, there is a Quarry Monitoring Committee tasked to oversee the operations of all permittees in the area, and to ensure that the soil extracted under a special permit is not being abused.
Extraction beyond what is allowed as well as its sale to other operators or to a private person are also violations.
PEMO recently cancelled two quarry operation permits in Kabankalan and Binalbagan, he disclosed.
Amisola said the permittees violated thrice the stipulations in their permits regarding transport policy and illegal extraction.
Several permittees are also under investigation for committing violations such as over loading, the PEMO chief added. – MML
