MARGAO
With monsoons fast approaching, these two government departments are back to conduct the annual ritual - to cover the legacy garbage dump at Sonsodo and the hazardous waste dump left behind by unscrupulous industrialists at the Cuncolim industrial estate.
Take note that the Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) is on the job to cover the Sonsodo waste dump owned by the Margao Municipal Council. At Cuncolim too, the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) has set in motion the exercise of mobilizing the resources to cap the hazardous Zinc waste left behind by a company, which is no more in existence.
As the two government agencies will be embarking on the job to cover the waste dumps, questions are being raised in certain quarters whether the GWMC and the GSPCB will cover the dumps for the last time around, or failure to dispose of the dumps will again bring them back to conduct yet another ritual next year.
Sonsodo Legacy waste dump
It’s now over a decade since the legacy dump is being covered with tarpaulin sheets to stop the leachate from flowing into the stormwater drains and water bodies as per the High Court order.
While the annual exercise of covering the Sonsodo legacy dump was carried out every year in the past by the Margao Municipal Council, the Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) has taken up the job since it took over the remediation of the legacy dump in the last three years.
When The Goan team visited Sonsodo, the GWMC contractor was on the job to cover the legacy dump on the west side. Unlike in the past, the contractor will only cover the balance portion of the legacy dump and the Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) heap since the GWMC has remediated a major part of the legacy dump in the last three years.
GWMC Managing Director, Dr Levinson Martins says, “Since the monsoon is fast approaching, the corporation has started the work of covering the portion of the dump, which has not been remediated to date. The balance portion of the RDF heap will also be covered from rains after the last truck with the dry waste leaves Sonsodo for the cement factories”.
Martins pointed out that the remediation work at the Sonsodo site is nearing completion, saying that it should not take more than 3-4 months after the monsoons to complete the work.
“If the monsoons retreat by August-September, we can resume the remediation work around October. In that case, it may not take more than 3-4 months to completely remediate the legacy dump,” he said.
Martins, however, hastened to add that though the legacy dump, up to the surface level, will be cleared by December, the GWMC has no data suggesting, whether the site in question is an abandoned quarry.
“So far, we have made available to the Margao Municipality land admeasuring 3,000 square metres towards the waste treatment plant side, which can be utilized to set up the proposed biomethanation plants. As far as the area adjoining the Curtorim road is concerned, we have no data to suggest whether it is an abandoned quarry or not,” he said.
Incidentally, members of the Citizens For Sonsodo, the petitioners in the High Court, pointed out that the GWMC and the contractor delayed in resuming the remediation work after the last monsoons by around four months.
“Work on the remediation at Sonsodo resumed only in March this year when the GWMC should have started the work in around December or January. The work would have been done by now,” remarked a CFS member.
Hazardous waste at Cuncolim industrial estate
Ever since Sunrise Zinc shut down operations over a decade ago, the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) has taken up the work to cover the hazardous dump left behind at the Cuncolim industrial estate. The dump is being covered by the GSPCB to ensure that the hazardous waste does not further contaminate the groundwater after locals complained of the devastation.
GSPCB member secretary Dr Shamila Monteiro said that workers drafted by the Board are on the site to get the hazardous dump covered before the onset of monsoons.
“The job of covering the hazardous waste at the Cuncolim industrial estate has got underway”, she said.
GSPCB officials, including Dr Shamila Monteiro and Board Chairman Mahesh Patel, may have to answer a question which every Cuncolkar has been asking over the years - when will the GPSCB rid the Cuncolim industrial estate of the hazardous waste?
When The Goan had posed this question to the GSPCB chairman Mahesh Patel and Member Secretary Dr Shamila Monteiro sometime ago, the duo pointed out that the Board is in the process of roping in an agency to conduct a study of the dump, with a brief to find out whether the dump can be capped at the existing site or shift the material to the government notified hazardous landfill site.
The hazardous material has been lying at the industrial estate for want of a hazardous landfill site. But, with the GSPCB granting consent to operate a hazardous landfill site, questions are raised when the hazardous material at Cuncolim is shifted to the landfill.
