Six public institutions and six city governments agreed yesterday to participate in a technical and functional evaluation of the Duquesa garbage dump. The dump would be converted into a sanitary landfill with adequate management. The plan is to cover an area of a million square meters that is currently an open-air garbage dump within 60 days. Proposals are being sought for the sustainable management of the landfill and also regarding the serious environmental problems created by the dump that is located in the municipality of Santo Domingo Norte. The budget for the landfill will now be overseen by an inter-institutional commission.
Those who signed the agreement are Public Works Minister Freddy Perez for the central government; Nicolas Solano Aristy for the Consorcio Duquesa; Josefina Gomez for the Ministry of Environment; Norge Botello for the Airports Department; Andres Vanderhorst for the Civil Aviation Board; and a representative of the Dominican Municipal League’s secretary general.
The mayors who use the dump for their populations’ garbage disposal also signed the agreement. These included Roberto Salcedo (Distrito Nacional), Domingo Batista (Santo Domingo Este), Daniel Carvajal Lois (Santo Domingo Norte); Francisco Pena (Santo Domingo Oeste); Daniel Ozuna (Boca Chica) and Martina de Jesus Garcia (Guerra).
Furthermore, the Ministry of Public Works announced it would build the access road to the landfill at a cost of RD$110 million.
One of the problems with the garbage situation in the city and province of Santo Domingo has been the difficulty for the collection trucks to reach the Duquesa site given the major deterioration of the access road.