With just two months to go to comply with the High Court deadline to clear the Sonsodo legacy dump, the Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) has reportedly deployed additional men and machinery to expedite remediation of the Sonsodo legacy dump and ensure the entire multi-crore operation is completed by February as per the High Court directives.
It is learnt that even as the remediation of the Sonsoddo legacy dump was going on in full swing, motorists on the Margao-Curtorim road complained of foul odour emanating from the gunny bags stacked with waste all along the road. As a matter of fact the Margao-Curtorim road at Sonsodo was littered with waste. Be that as it may, the State government and the civic authorities appear to be at wits end in finding a lasting solution to the problem.
It is understood that around 10,000 tonnes of garbage was piled up inside the Sonsodo waste treatment plant in April and more has been added in the past several months. Goa is blessed with natural beauty and is visited by tourists from within the country and across the globe. However very little, or no heed has been paid to the ever-present menace of garbage. This would not have been the state of affairs had the State government implemented strict rules of zero garbage generation as has been followed in some of the pristine and fragile eco-sensitive areas in the world. The Sonsodo dump is a burning issue, quite literally. On several occasions the legacy dump had caught fire. The personnel of the fire department are kept on their toes. The methane gas escaping from the dump makes the legacy waste highly combustible.
The rise in the temperature is leading to loss of moisture in the dump and increase of methane gas being released. A small spark will be sufficient to start a major fire. It is learnt that residents as far as one kilometre away have complained of odour of methane gas in the air late in the evenings. One can often see smoke billowing from the waste at various points. There is every possibility of a fire incident at the dump going out of control and turning into an inferno thereby causing widespread damage and a major air pollution issue. Hopefully a lasting solution will be arrived at to this perennial problem Goa is facing.
