Cabinet Council declares a state of environmental emergency at the Cerro Patacón landfill

The Cabinet Council, in its ordinary session today, approved the Declaration of the State of Environmental Emergency in the Cerro Patacón sanitary landfill to execute an inter-institutional intervention in order to mitigate and restore the environmental disaster caused in the place.
The approved resolution instructs the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of the Environment and the Urban and Home Cleaning Authority, as well as other corresponding public institutions, to adopt inter-institutional measures to mitigate the damage caused in the landfill.
The Minister of the Environment, Milciades Concepción, explained that the measure makes possible the immediate intervention of other institutions to mitigate the disaster caused by the historical mismanagement of solid waste in the landfill.
He stressed that the environmental emergency is necessary to carry out a better management of the landfill in the face of the environmental and health risk due to the mismanagement of solid waste inherited by the company Urbalia, SA, which breached the contract and environmental measures when it operated the landfill. Cerro Patacón toilet.
The irregularities committed in the landfill become a threat to the health of the populations near the site, as well as to the students and teachers of the Kuna Nega School.
The minister highlighted that the company Urbalia, SA, which is facing administrative processes of fines for breaches of the contract, incurred in the inadequate handling of leachate, waste coverage, slopes, bad odors, concurrent fires, construction of infrastructures without permits, among others.
All these irregularities and breaches by Urbalia, SA were corroborated through an inspection carried out at the Cerro Patacón sanitary landfill by the Ministry of the Environment on March 27.
The measure authorizes the acquisition of necessary goods and services during the validity of the state of environmental emergency, which will be carried out in accordance with the sole text of Law 22 of 2006, ordered by Law 153 of 2020.
Similarly, the Ministry of Security is instructed to adopt the necessary measures to ensure safety in the Cerro Patacón sanitary landfill and areas of direct influence while the measure is in force.