08 March 2011

SIDON: Sidon’s municipality will no longer authorize the municipalities of surrounding towns and villages to fling their waste in the city’s dump if they fail to contribute to the funding of a waste treatment plant, municipality officials said Monday.

Sidon’ municipal council said it will not allow what they called “uncooperative towns” in south Lebanon to continue dropping their waste in the coastal city’s notorious dump.

Sources close to the municipality told The Daily Star that Sidon Mayor Mohammad Saudi would wait one more week to reach an agreement with municipal councils of nearby towns and villages.

However, the sources added that if an agreement is not reached Saudi would hold a news conference to reveal those municipalities’ refusal to contribute to the launching of a waste treatment plant.

Following a decision by the Union of Municipal Councils of Sidon and Zahrani to fund a center for household solid waste treatment last week, Saudi had asked the municipalities to file a request to caretaker Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud to allocate 40 percent of each municipality’s share of funds from the Independent Municipal Fund to cover the costs of waste treatment at the new center.

The participants at last week’s meeting at the office of south Lebanon Governor Nicholas Bou Daher were informed by Saudi that the waste plant was ready for household solid waste treatment and to receive 350 tons of waste daily.

A statement released by the Sidon Municipality during the weekend said that the city’s huge waste dump was incapable of absorbing more waste after it reached full capacity.

“After its absorbing capacity crossed the red line, we are close to an environmental disaster in Sidon,” the statement added.

But several mayors of south Lebanon villages surrounding Sidon declined to allocate 40 percent of their municipality budget to the plant.

Several sources at Sidon’s municipal council told The Daily Star that the dispute between the Sidon municipality and other municipalities is not a financial one but a political one caused by the rift between Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

“What we are witnessing today is a political price being paid by Sidon after Berri’s candidate lost a parliamentary battle in Sidon to Hariri’s Future Movement candidate in 2009,” one source said.

Saudi, who was elected as mayor of the municipality during elections in 2010, said the waste treatment center would solve the decades-old waste problem in the Sidon area. “Sidon has for long carried the burden of hosting the waste of the region on its coast and it is time for all municipalities to contribute to this solution,” Saudi added.

In a bid to solve the dispute between the municipalities, Sidon Mufti Salim Soussan held a meeting in which he reiterated that the environmental disaster that was threatening Sidon does not differentiate between people and  would affect all southern villages.

“This treatment center should start operating,”he said.

Soussan added that the treatment center could start functioning before funds to cover energy supplies and the salaries of employees are secured. “This was agreed upon among the municipalities of Iqlim al-Tuffah, Jezzine … Kafarhouna, Arab Salim, Jarjouh and Jabaa,” added the Mufti.

However, according to Soussan, less than 24 hours later some of the municipalities contacted Sidon and repudiated the signed agreement. According to Soussan Sidon, which does not produce more than 130 tons of waste, would bar all other municipalities from dumping their waste in the city’s dump if they fail to contribute to its funding.

Copyright The Daily Star 2011.