With the successful passing of City Ordinance 2010-014, it is now official: every septic tank in the City of San Fernando will be desludged on a five year schedule.
The ordinance – amending chapter 16 of the city's sanitation code – mandates the contracting out of the desludging task to private desludger(s) and proper treatment and disposal of the collected septage (septic tank contents). With current desludging fees among the highest in the country at PhP 7500, the city's septic tank desludging program brings with it a much lower cost. A Wastewater Management Fee will be charged at the following annual rates, beginning January 2012:
1. Residential building: Six Hundred Pesos (PhP 600.00)
2. Commercial Establishments (excluding malls): One Thousand Pesos (PhP1,000.00)
3. Malls and Institutions: One Thousand Five Hundred Pesos (PhP1,500.00)
4. Industrial: Two Thousand Pesos (PhP 2,000.00)
The fee will be added onto the Real Property Tax (RPT) bill. The desludging schedule will be made public in the barangays as soon as it is drafted, so that residents and establishments will know in which year/month they can expect their septic tanks to be desludged.
Septic tank owners will also be able to request an “out-of-schedule” desludging by contacting the CENRO and paying a one-time fee to the City Treasurers Office in the amount of:
1. Eight Hundred Pesos (PhP 800.00) per household
2. Three Thousand Five Hundred Pesos (PhP 3500.00) per commercial establishment
To comply with environment and health regulations, the city is currently building a septage treatment facility in Barangay Dallangayan Oeste that will clean all the septage removed from the septic tanks. Construction has started on several lagoons, with financial support from Congressman Victor Ortega. Funding from the USAID-Rotary San Fernando City Sewerage and Septage Management Program will be used to hire a contractor to build the rest of the facility. The contractor is scheduled to start work before April 1st.
Construction of lagoons for septage treatment
