ILOILO CITY (PNA) – The once beautiful and majestic Iloilo River is now the city’s biggest septic tank with 140 of its 180 barangays dumping their wastes into it.

This is the reason why the river at the heart of the metropolis is dying, said City Environment and Natural Resources Officer Engr. Noel Hechanova.

Compounding the pollution problem is the wastewater from hospitals, hotels, commercial establishments, and households freely discharged to the river. Fish kills have become a regular occurrence at the river because of the unabated pollution it absorbs.

“There’s a problem of low dissolved oxygen caused by organic load from human wastes. The impact is fish kill and death of aquatic animals and plants. Septic tanks should serve as partial treatment of human wastes considering the city has no centralized sewage treatment facility,” Hechanova said.

“We should build a sewage treatment facility to at least reduce the organic load being discharged to the river,” he added.

Hechanova said the City Hall must pass an ordinance that will require households to clean their septic tanks every three years.

He said the common practice is that the septic tanks are not dislodged until these are full, thus, overflowing in the drainage system.

The proposed sewage ordinance, Hechanova explained, will provide a management office and disposal guidelines for this purpose.

How much it will cost to treat the sewage in the city?

Hechanova said building a centralized sewage treatment facility would cost P80 million.

Initially, they are trying to source out P3 million for the project’s feasibility study and engineering plan through a funding assistance from Asian Development Bank (ADB) or United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

“It’s a very expensive and large project. Even in Manila with two million population, only some 2,000 have been connected to the sewage treatment facility,” Hechanova said.

Hechanova said they have been advocating since 2004 for the USAID-supported Local Initiatives for Affordable Wastewater Treatment (LINAW) project to be replicated here.

Meanwhile, a “low-cost” P4-million wastewater treatment plant has been piloted in the city’s new slaughterhouse in Barangay Tacas, Jaro.

Hechanova said they have been encouraging hospitals to install wastewater treatment plant. In fact, they are offering their technical assistance and are making study tours for hospital administrators to help them realize this facility.

So far, only Iloilo Doctors’ Hospital has established its own wastewater treatment facility.

Hechanova said malls including SM, Robinsons, and Gaisano, retail store Makro, fast food chain Red Ribbon and three big oil companies Petron, Shell and Caltex are likewise equipped with wastewater treatment plants.

St. Paul’s Hospital which sits right on the riverbank and Iloilo Mission Hospital have of late started establishing their wastewater treatment plants.

Hechanova said establishments may use chemicals to treat their wastewater but it’s expensive and not sustainable. In the long run it is cheaper to have a wastewater treatment plant.

For failure to set up wastewater treatment facilities, businesses will be penalized for non-compliance with the Clean Water Act that requires treatment of toilet wastes prior to disposal.