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Ja-Ela ready to fight, united by garbage threat
Ja-Ela residents have protested against the move to dump garbage. Pix by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) is determined to dump the city’s garbage in Ekala, in the adjoining district of Gampaha, despite stiff resistance from the residents backed by the area’s clergy.
Despite street protests by Ja-Ela residents, CMC Commissioner V.K.A. Anura claimed that the court had issued an order to dump the garbage.
“We have got the order and will dump,” he said.
But, Fr. Priya Jayamanne of the Catholic Church in Ja-ela, who is at the forefront of the protest along with a group of Buddhist monks in the area, said that the CMC’s claims were false and there had not been a specific court order to allow dumping.
Residents were protesting over a plan to dump the Colombo garbage on a privately-owned 36-acre site in Ekala.
The CMC’s attempts to find dumping sites in the suburbs has been met with resistance. Locations in Madampitiya and Karadeniya have been abandoned due to protest by residents in those areas.
Fr Jayamanne, said that when the case filed by Methotamulla area residents against the dumping of garbage was taken up the court had questioned the CMC on alternative lands ear-marked for dumping Colombo garbage and the CMC had told the court it would use the Ekala site. “This was not a court order. This is a misinterpretation,” Fr. Jayamanne said.
He said that if the CMC ignores protest and goes ahead and dumps rubbish at the site, the residents would not hesitate to seek redress in courts.
The community, he said, was alert and waiting to counter steps to dump garbage on the land. “The entire Ja-ela area will gather in solidarity against this move,” he said.
The land is in a low- lying area and is marshy and even light rain could flush the garbage into homes.
He said that the CMC had talked of establishing a recycling centre at the site with the assurance that garbage would be recycled quickly without letting it grow into huge mounds like the Meethotamulla garbage dump.
The local people, he said, were not ready to take that risk as history had shown that recycling centres had been failures. “We will be stuck with the garbage. This will be another Meethotamulla,” he said.
The proposed site in Ekala
The recycling plant put up at Kardiyana also failed.
Several Buddhist monks and Catholic priests were among the protesters. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith also issued a statement this week requesting to refrain from dumping garbage at the proposed site.
Residents pointed out that the proposed garbage dumping site was surrounded by houses and includes some large scale housing schemes.
The land also has waterways that connect to the Dadugam Oya – a major source of water for irrigation.
As it flows into the sea the fisheries industry could also be affected apart from the impact on paddy lands in the surrounding areas, a resident said.
The developments have prompted environmentalist to call for a long-term plan for garbage disposal under the Megapolis development programme for the Western Province to be expedited.
The Megapolis plan to take the Colombo garbage to Puttalam has been abandoned due to protests and environmental issues surrounding the proposed site while the project to dump garbage in 10 acres of sanitary landfill in Muthurajawela could take another two years to complete.
Megapolis, Secretary Nihal Rupasinghe said that the programme is in progress but will take time. “We have a long term plan for the garbage problem and we are not ready, yet,” he said.
President Maithripala Sirisena recently promised to have a strategic national solution within three years.
Meanwhile Deputy Minister of Megapolis and Western Development Lasantha Alagiyawnna responding to a question raised in Parliament last week said that the Land Reclamation and Development Corporation has given Western Power Pvt Ltd 10 acres in Muthurajawela to dump the 800 metric tonnes of garbage collected from Colombo each day.
Minister Alagiyawanna admitted that the Karandeniya project in Piliyandala to dump garbage has been a failure. He said that project proposals for Gampaha and Colombo would be put before the Technical Evaluation Committee and then to the cabinet.
Meanwhile the situation at the Meethotumulla garbage dump has been worsening with regular instances of the mountains of garbage collapsing onto adjoining houses.
