Foul odor from waste lagoon to be treated

BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines—San Carlos Bioenergy Inc., the country’s first ethanol plant found in San Carlos City in Negros Occidental, is putting up a facility to reduce the foul odor from its plant that residents up to 10 kilometers away have been complaining about.

The anaerobic digester will be operational in two to three months, said Judito Salvador, the firm’s community relations manager. It will convert wastes into biogas, according to the website balitapinoy.net.

It will also biologically treat wastes to improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas and other harmful emissions, Salvador said.

The integrated ethanol distillery and power cogeneration plant, located at the San Carlos Agro-Industrial Economic Zone, is the first in Southeast Asia. It started operation only in January.

So far, it has produced about 5 million liters of ethanol that its sells to Petron Corp.

The plant can produce up to 30 million liters of ethanol yearly and eight megawatts of power, its website said.

The distillery processes feedstock of mixed juice from sugar cane crushed on-site while its cogeneration plant uses the residual sugar cane pulp known as bagasse as primary fuel.

Salvador said the foul odor was coming from the wastewater treatment lagoon, which was now being treated with lime and enzymes.

Complaints about the “obnoxious order” have come from as far the residents of Calatrava town, about 10 km from San Carlos.

Calatrava Councilor John Mark Fabroz said the smell “like human waste” would reach the town proper at night, usually starting at 9 p.m.

Fabroz said he would file a resolution before the municipal council to ask the firm to abate the “obnoxious odor.”

He said he had also received reports that the odor had reached Toboso town, which is 30 km from San Carlos.

Toboso Mayor Evello Valencia Jr. said he had not smelled the foul odor, but some residents had told him that they did.

But Valencia said he could definitely smell the odor when he passes through San Carlos, even with the windows of his car rolled up.

Valencia said he would raise the matter at the Inter Local Health Zone meeting of the first district.

San Carlos Mayor Eugenio Jose Lacson said he was confident that the company would address the air pollution.

The methane produced during anaerobic digestion will be used as supplemental fuel for the boiler, the website said.