interior

New mayor to face big issues

Trash collection and an updated landfill site top the list of concerns in the Los Santos province.

Neither of the two leading mayoral candidates in the area have announced their plans to resolve the waste problem.

Alcibiades Cortés/La Prensa

health hazard: Many residents of Las Tablas, the capital of the Los Santos province, fear that the medical waste showing up on local beaches will deter tourists.1099601

Garbage collection, the construction of a more sanitary landfill and reforesting the basin of the Río Mensabé are some of the activities residents of the Los Santos province say they would like to see their next mayor make priorities.

For Luis Villarreal, a member of the Asociación de Criadores de Ganado Cebú de Panamá (Cricepa), the community’s chief concerns at the moment are improving garbage collection and building a landfill to replace the area’s current dump, which has devolved into an environmental nightmare since it collapsed. These days, high tides and heavy rains have sent water lapping at the edges of the landfill, drawing out to sea medical waste, such as syringes, frightening tourists visiting the popular El Uverito beach.

Problems with the region’s waste management system are mainly due to budget shortfalls over the last year, when health authorities received only $33,358 of the $85,000 they estimated would be needed to fix the problems.

According to a recent census, trash collection in the area only serves some 7,000 of the community’s 26,000 residences.

Milciades Cerrud, a resident of the district of El Cocal, said that the new mayor should be committed to resolving the garbage problem by better organizing the collection of the taxes levied in the community.

Cerrud recommended a new location be found for the landfill, whose current spot is far too close to mangrove forests and the very beaches that lure visitors and real estate investors to the region.

According to the Municipio de Las Tablas, some $539,950 in taxes were collected so far this year, with non-tax revenues bringing in another $325,000.

Municipal treasurer Gloria De Sosa said the area’s principal sources of income are raised through vehicle registration, buildings, livestock and land sales.

Meanwhile, environmentalists such as Mario Omar González of the Comité Ambiental felt the biggest challenge facing the new mayor will be protecting the Río Mensabé, which was declared a protected watershed and one of the province’s main sources of water, from the waste discharged from local pig farms.

The region’s two mayoral hopefuls, Edison González of the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD) and Arquímedes Cedeño of the Partido Panameñista, have not yet made public their plans for managing local natural resources and updating the waste treatment system.

However, Cedeño has pledged to make both projects priorities. The Panameñista candidate also promised to cooperate with other local authorities to boost agricultural production in Las Tablas’ 24 corregimientos.