A large part of the population of the Pedro María Ureña municipality, on the border with Colombia in western Táchira State, continues to suffer a serious health and environmental crisis, caused by the polluting smoke emitted by wildfires in the well-known “Bella Vista landfill”, which to date has generated serious health problems in the respiratory tract of its neighbors.
By Luz Dary Depablos / Correspondent lapatilla.com
“Some neighbors with respiratory diseases have been detected with spots in their lungs as if they were tobacco smokers, but it is due to pollution, since they do not breathe clean air,” emphasized Carlos Taborda, councilor of the Pedro María Ureña municipality.
It should be noted that this situation has been repeatedly denounced by the affected citizens, as the landfill was built in 1989, meaning it has already exceeded its 20 year lifespan that is authorized by environmental regulations.
However, for decades it has not had an adequate recycling or waste classification system, so according to Councilman Taborda “it has become a dump where waste from the municipalities of Junín, Bolívar and Ureña is deposited.”
Faced with this situation, on October 22nd, Taborda went to the regional parliament, where he exposed the environmental problem and asked the legislators for a prompt and urgent solution, through the creation of a new landfill in another place to serve the border municipalities.
He assures that if this emergency is not addressed in the short term, it could become a serious public health problem on both sides of the Colombian -Venezuelan border, harming mainly children and the elderly.
Therefore, it calls for a prompt response from the authorities of the Ministry of Environment, as well as from regional and other national authorities.
