500 tons of waste and stupidity
THAT howling noise you might have noticed on Thursday and Friday this week was the nation’s collective expression of derision directed at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources ( DENR) for its almost inconceivably stupid and wasteful idea to dress up the shore of Manila Bay with more than 500 tons of “white sand,” a move that is certain to go down in history as one of the more embarrassing follies of government planning.
Undersecretary Benny Antiporda, who may now be ruing being assigned the duty of serving as the agency’s point man on the project, tried to clarify the DENR’s thinking in a media statement on Thursday. The “white sand” is actually crushed dolomite flown to Manila from Cebu, Antiporda explained, and “was overlaid in the beach area for the people to see that the white sand will signify cleanliness.”
As for the obvious problem that sand simply dumped on the Manila Bay shore would soon wash away, Antiporda assured the public: “We have engineering interventions that will be done to make sure the bay will be preserved and to sustain the beauty of Manila Bay.”
A number of environmental groups issued angry statements protesting the DENR move, pointing out that the mere cosmetics of an artificial and highly likely short- lived beach are no substitute for a comprehensive rehabilitation plan for the bay. That point of view is correct; other than step- by- step actions to “clean up” the bay and its shoreline, particularly on the important stretch along Roxas Boulevard, the government has not presented a detailed, long- term plan for environmental management of the bay and the watersheds that feed into it. It should be noted that the somewhat ad hoc, clean- up efforts carried out by the DENR and other participating agencies have had some remarkable results, but whatever goodwill the government has earned through that work will be quickly undone if it is not extended and sustained. The shore of Manila Bay, after all, is the edge of one of the densest and most populated urban areas on the planet; keeping the water and coastal fringe clean will require constant effort.
What is more concerning is the great cost of creating a beach in an area where a natural beach has never existed before; at a time when government expenditures are constrained by the coronavirus pandemic response and its impact on the economy. Most people would agree that making cosmetic improvements to the Manila Bay shoreline at a time when the number of visitors who can actually appreciate it is severely limited should not be a priority. Transporting hundreds of tons of sand by air from another part of the country cannot have been an inexpensive undertaking, and we question, as nearly everyone who is aware of the project has, whether the money could have been employed with better value elsewhere.
And contrary to Antiporda’s assertion that “engineering interventions” will keep the new artificial beach in place, numerous studies done around the world on “beach nourishment” — the addition of sand to existing beaches in order to maintain them — conclude that it is an inevitable failure.
In a 2018 study of several beaches in California, for example, researchers from the University of California at San Diego found that in every case, the added sand quickly moved from where it was placed. One beach was entirely eroded in a single winter storm while the sand from another migrated over several months to choke off a nearby river estuary. The study concluded that only beaches that have at least some source of natural sand as well as sufficient width to migrate landward as sea levels rise could be sustained by “beach nourishment,” and only then if the effort was more or less continuous with new sand being added constantly. Neither of those natural conditions apply to the area of Manila Bay where the DENR has created a “beach,” thus the almost certain result of the project will be temporary.
What’s done is done; it would be foolish to apply the work and cost to try to remove the sand that has already been placed. But the DENR would be well- advised to stop wasting its effort and our tax money on this ridiculous project.