When the wind shifts around from the west, the clouds of acrid smoke from burning garbage covers Santiago like a blanket of fog. Visibility is limited, and breathing is difficult. Photos on several front pages last week brought the city’s plight to the national forefront. El Caribe newspaper announced today that both business and government are sighting in on the problem. Santiago business leaders, operating under the umbrella of CASA (the Corporation for Cleanliness of Santiago) told reporters that within 15 days they will begin to construct the landfill that will substitute the Rafey Refuse Dump.
And yesterday, the Government Council appointed four officials to study the plan. According to Felix Garcia, the president of the Santiago Development Association, with the approval of the City Council (Ayuntamiento) the CASA team will begin work on the sanitary landfill in El Naranjo.
The Government Council appointed the Ministers of Public Works, Environment, Interior and Police and the governor of Santiago province to oversee the project. The mayor of Santiago will be invited by the Minister of the Interior and the Police Franklin Almeyda via the Municipal League. Next Friday, this commission will travel to Rafey to inspect the site. No price tag has been placed on the government’s efforts to control this bothersome source of contamination, but Garcia cited a figure of between RD$70 or RD$80 million, which is RD$20 million less then the numbers mentioned by the Mayor of Santiago, Jose Enrique Sued.