Clenro hits council: No clearance yet

By NITZ ARANCON, Correspondent

CITY hall’s environment chief yesterday hurled brickbats at the city council for giving the Cagayan de Oro Corn Products Inc.’s planned six-megawatt power plant in Tablon the green light even before his office could give it an environmental clearance.

Edwin Dael, chief of the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office (Clenro), said this even as he questioned claims that the firm would not use coal to fire up the proposed power plant.

Dael said the city council railroaded the approval of a social acceptability document in favor of the Cagayan Corn Product’s project.

The social acceptability certificate from the city council, he said, should have come only after the Clenro has given the project an environmental clearance.

“The Clenro has not issued an environmental clearance. So why did the city council approve the social acceptability sought by the Cagayan Corn Products?” asked Dael.

He said the Clenro has not issued a clearance because that company has not answered this very important question: Where will it source the tons of wood and other agricultural waste products required to operate the power plant?

Dael said he was unconvinced with the assurance of the firm’s lawyer, Arnold Barba, that the power plant would not use coal.

Incidentally, Barba’s elder brother Adrian is one of the city councilors who voted in favor of giving the company’s controversial project the go-ahead.

Councilor Zaldy Ocon, who endorsed the project before the city council, said he based his decision on the younger Barba’s letter that assured that the planned Tablon power plant would not be using coal.

Dael said it was unthinkable that the six-megawatt power plant would not be using coal.

He explained that such a power plant would require 250 tons of biomass per day.

“If they are going to use wood, where will they get such a supply? And so, they would have to resort to coal,” he pointed out.