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‘Stench team’ starts monitoring hog farms

‘Stench team’ starts monitoring hog farms
PORAC – The local government has created a task force to monitor the efforts of piggeries and poultry farms here to eliminate the stench emanating from their animal pens.
Victoria Velasco, 83, president of the Krusada Kontra Amoy (KKA), said she is happy that the monitoring has started.

“At least, we’re now seeing answers to the protests that we made in the past,” Velasco said.
The Task Force Clean Air and Water Act formally started its monitoring of hog farms on Thursday. The task force, headed by Mayor Condralito dela Cruz, is expected to conduct regular inspections of the various piggeries and poultry farms in Porac.
Two months ago, Councilor Michael Tapang suggested that a task force be created as a short-term solution to the problem of the stench coming from the town’s hog farms.
Aside from local government officials, other members of the task force include representatives from the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB), piggery owners and environmentalist groups.
Edward Agri-Farm was the first among the 14 major piggeries to be monitored by the task force.
Ruperto Cruz, head of the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM), has personally joined the task force.
He pointed out that the Clean Air and Water Act is still being violated, as aside from the stench, the farms’ water waste canals are also untidy.
Still, Cruz said there are remedies to the sanitary problems inside the hog farm and the task force has already suggested ways to cover the waste water canals.
Remy Chu, operations manager of the Edward Agri-Farm, said they are open to the task force’s suggestions and guaranteed these will reach the farm’s owner.
Reynaldo Garcia, senior environment officer from EMB, has taken two water samples from the pig pens’ lagoon for testing.
One sample will be checked by a government laboratory while the other will be inspected by a private laboratory.
Issues of bio-security
A day before the monitoring, Mayor Dela Cruz has called for an emergency meeting at the town’s municipal hall.
During the meeting, Orlando Pangilinan, legal counsel of some of the piggery owners, raised the issue of bio-security.
He said the presence of too many people in pigpens in different farms might threaten the pigs’ health as the monitoring team might transfer germs from one pen or farm to another.
Pangilinan said there should be a procedure and EMB officials should be present during the monitoring.
The lawyer’s concern has set a guideline for the monitoring team to inspect only one farm a day with a limited number of representatives.
Meanwhile, Tapang has reiterated his call to piggery owners to form an association that will police their ranks.
He said this association among piggery owners will help them monitor each other’s compliance rates.
During the emergency meeting, members of the KKA and PGKM have once again raised their concern that piggeries violating sanitation standards might not be shut down.
Tapang admitted that hog farms found to be in violation of sanitation standards might not be closed immediately because the law provides them a chance to improve their operations.
“If they have not remedied their violations after the given period, that’s the time we can order their closure. And we would like to repeat that the regular monitoring is just the short-term solution to the problem,” he said.
The councilor added that the long-term solution to the problem is a comprehensive land use plan which the town officials will create soon. (Charlene Cayabyab)

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