Arslan to Salam: Choueifat Residents Opposed to Costa Brava Landfill
Lebanese Democratic Party chief MP Talal Arslan visited Prime Minister Tammam Salam on Sunday along with a delegation from Choueifat and told the premier that the town's residents are opposed to the establishment of a garbage landfill in the Costa Brava area.
The delegation comprised Choueifat municipal chief Melhem al-Souqi, municipality members, the town's mayors and representatives of political parties and civil society groups.
“We came here with the town's dignitaries to express with total frankness the opposition of Choueifat's residents to the Costa Brava landfill,” said Arslan after the meeting with Salam in Msaytbeh.
“We have heard a lot of promises and we don't have any doubts regarding PM Tammam Salam's integrity, keenness, modesty or ethics, but we openly declare that we have no confidence in the state and its institutions,” the MP added.
“We cannot accept or stay silent over what's happening at Costa Brava, especially in light of our experience in Mount Lebanon and specifically regarding the Naameh landfill, which continued to operate for more than 17 years despite initial claims that it would only operate for two years,” Arslan explained.
Environmental activists have recently warned of the “environmental damage” that could be caused by the seaside garbage facility, noting that it violates the Barcelona Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean. Residents have also decried that the landfill will have an alleged negative impact on their health.
Preparation works kicked off last month at the site and it has recently started receiving quantities of trash that had accumulated in random sites across Lebanon. The landfill is part of a controversial government plan to resolve the country's long-running waste management crisis.
“We do not want to repeat the Naameh landfill experience in the town of Choueifat … and the solution is not in our hand. We have nothing to do with finding solutions, seeing as this is the responsibility of the State and the specialized institutions,” Arslan said on Sunday.
“We are ready to contribute under a decentralized solution for the garbage crisis,” the lawmaker added, noting that the town is sorting and recycling its waste.
“We do not want to exclusively treat Choueifat's trash and leave the Costa Brava landfill open to all choices and possibilities,” Arslan said, expressing his concern that authorities intend to dump untreated bulk waste at the site.
Lebanon's unprecedented trash management crisis erupted in July 2015 after the closure of the Naameh landfill which was receiving the waste of Beirut and Mount Lebanon.
The crisis, which sparked unprecedented protests against the entire political class, has seen streets, forests and riverbanks overflowing with waste and the air filled with the smell of rotting and burning garbage.
On March 12, the cabinet decided to establish two landfills in Costa Brava and Bourj Hammoud and to reactivate the Naameh landfill for two months as part of a four-year plan to resolve the country’s waste problem despite the rejection of many residents and civil society activists.
A landfill’s location in the Shouf and Aley areas will be determined later following consultations with the local municipalities and the Sidon waste management plant will also receive some of Beirut's trash, the cabinet said.
Y.R.
Source: Naharnet
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