Despite the agreement signed on 23 November 2004 that was deemed the definite solution to the Duquesa garbage dump into a sanitary landfill, nothing has happened. El Caribe reports today that the delay is due to the lack of the five municipalities ratifying the agreement.
The Ministry of Public Works has also not come through with its pledge to rebuild the access road to the landfill at a cost of RD$110 million.
The Ministry of Public Works had reached an agreement with the group of engineers to whom the Fernandez administration awarded the Herrera Airport grounds during its first administration in exchange for a debt for work on the Duarte Highway. The engineers had committed to perform the work of covering up the garbage in Duquesa with limestone. The agreement established that once the landfill has been completed, the Herrera terminal operations would be relocated to the new airport. Balaguer International has not yet opened because US aviation authorities have not given clearance for airplanes to land there, based primarily on the threat to air traffic caused by hundreds of birds drawn to the area by the refuse site and the La Isabela River area.
The only news that progress is being made on the adequate management of the garbage dump comes from a report in El Caribe whereby Japanese technicians are meeting this week with the city government of Santo Domingo discard relocating the garbage dump. Norio Yonezaki, deputy director of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) says that a visiting mission of experts is studying extending the useful life of the dump from three to five or eight years.