In accordance with R.A. 9003 otherwise known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, all local government units (LGUs) are obligated to identify and acquire/allocate/reserve land areas for municipal solid waste disposal facilities. Said environmental law also provides that the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) together with its various Regional Offices all over the country are mandated to extend technical assistance to these LGUs in the evaluation and assessment of the technical and environmental viability as well as the geological suitability of certain land properties identified or proposed by LGUs as potential sites for municipal solid waste disposal facilities.  

Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) Region IV-A CALABARZON OIC Regional Director Miguel C. Fernandez, Jr. recently disclosed that during the onslaught of typhoon “Ondoy”, which devastated and inundated most parts of Metro-Manila and the surrounding CALABARZON provinces of Rizal and Laguna, the storm’s unprecedented record heavy rainfall also took its toll on several mines, quarries and mineral processing plants in Rizal province. The rock aggregates quarries and crushing plants in the municipalities of San Mateo and Rodriguez (Montalban) bore the brunt of the typhoon’s fury and suffered heavy property damages and untold adverse environmental impacts onsite including the surrounding areas.

In San Mateo town, two rock crushing plant sites; namely: those belonging to RMR AGGREGATE Corp. (Formerly CONROCK) and MONTEROCK CORP. were totally inundated. The entire processing plant premises of both companies including field offices, crusher equipment, appurtenant structures such as siltation control facilities and motor pool yards with some parked mobile equipment were totally submerged under two stories-deep flood waters at the height of Typhoon Ondoy.