FOR FIVE

At first, residents of this seaside community were more puzzled than worried at the sudden proliferation of what they called bitukang manok and lumot. But then townsfolk noticed that these algae did not just grow in scattered clumps and beds on submerged rocks. Instead, they colonized other niches—rock, mud, sand—in a continuous swath that extended to a depth of 61 meters and at least a kilometer wide eastward. Those that could not get out of the algae’s way, like seagrass meadows and coral reefs, were smothered.

By September, the monsoon winds and waves would wash the algae ashore, and the seawaters would turn murky and slimy. The waters stung the skin, causing unbearable itchiness, and anyone who waded or took a dip in them was at a risk of allergies that later turned into blisters. The algae die-offs amassed by the shore, turning into ink-black, foul-smelling muck. Fisherfolk here say the overpowering stench of decay would waft inland, sending children and the elderly into coughing fits, sometimes leaving a number of them gasping for air.

“Even dogs won’t come near the shore, says Filomeno Mana, leader of the fisherfolk here. “Even the umang (hermit crabs) and the kumong-kumong (ghost crabs) would leave. The samu (sargassum), the lusay (seagrass) and kinhason (shellfish) became scarce here.”

It did not take residents long to conclude that a giant brewery nearby may have something to do with the phenomenon. After all, they reasoned, the algal bloom began only in 1994, a year after the brewery started full-scale operations here and discharged its effluents into the sea. And so when this community experienced its worst and most serious episode of algae overgrowth yet last year, more than 200 local fishers petitioned the town and provincial governments as well as two government agencies to look into the processes of the Asia Brewery Inc. (ABI), owned by tycoon Lucio Tan.

But the petition was largely ignored; worse, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Region X dismissed the aggressive algal growth as nothing to be worried about even as its own tests indicated otherwise, according to some environmental experts. By such attitude, fishers and environmental advocates say the very government agency mandated to protect the environment has left a harmful phenomenon unchecked at Macajalar Bay, a powerful corporation to do what it will to the seas and for what is known as “green tide” to spread to other vulnerable waters.

Algal bloom specialist Dr. Brian Lapointe of the Harborview Research Institute in Florida, hints that the DENR may have been too quick in dismissing the problem and absolving the brewery of any culpability in the process. Indeed, an independent test commissioned by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and conducted by scientists from the Mindanao State University at Iligan and Cagayan de Oro indicates that the green tide at the Bay is already at a serious level and that the ABI may not be as guilt-free as officials of the company and the DENR make it out to be

But as Lapointe says, “The denial of this problem by the brewery officials and government agencies is not surprising. I deal with this behavior constantly here in the (United States).” He adds, “Resource managers generally play dumb about such serious problems, although sometimes they really are.”

In truth, even today, the DENR has yet to make a full study of this kind of algal bloom. The DENR-10’s priority agenda for the next millenium also makes no mention of the green blight, which is a harbinger of habitat and biodiversity losses in marine waters.

But while green tide is of lesser notoriety than the toxic red tide, it is yet another item in the growing list of human-induced threats to the integrity of coastal marine ecosystems.

Marine scientists had warned earlier this decade that “nutrients inputs that causes algal blooms is increasing in direct proportion to growing human populations and industrialization.” Specifically, nutrients pollution (also called eutrophication), or too much of the chemicals nitrogen (as nitrates and/or ammonia) and phosphorus (as orthophosphate) in a waterbody is known to cause these abnormal blooms.

These nutrients most often do not come from a single source, but are produced by several sources. Yet while it is difficult to pinpoint the causes of green tide, experts say it is easy enough to predict its effects: One is that putrefaction generates gases that are generally considered detrimental to living organisms, including human beings. Another effect is that oxygen gets depleted as the dead algae settle on the bottom and stimulate bacterial breakdown and processes requiring oxygen. Extreme oxygen depletion, in turn, leads to fishkills.

Finally, left unabated, the benign-looking algae could alter ecosystems and destroy them completely.

For the fisherfolk here, the immediate effects of the green tide already include not only living with a malodorous smell for months but also a depleted source of food supply as an algae-choked shoreline that failed to yield shellfish, shrimp, seaweed, kelp, sea urchins and other edible sealife in between the fishing seasons.

The fisherfolk had first tried to approach the local government units (LGUs) for help, but were told that these could do nothing. While the Local Government Code had transferred the powers to enforce environmental laws to LGUs, these local leaders still do not have the capability to decide on coastal resource mangement or aquatic pollution. They had to turn to DENR for technical expertise and advice.

But the DENR has been insistent that nothing is afoul or befouling about these algae. “These common seaweeds are not known to be harmful or toxic,” said Vicente Paragas, then DENR-10 director at the height of the controversy. “They are endemic or indigenous species.”

He also declared at a press conference late last year: “The algal bloom, as everybody calls it, is an exaggeration. There is no cause for alarm.”

The DENR-10 has identified the algae as Enteromorpha clathrata and Ulva lactuca, species of green algae belonging to Phylum Chlorophyta, common in estuarine and protected open coastal sites. According to Paragas, these algae are good sources of protein, minerals and vitamins. They serve as animal feed, cultured milkfish feed, fish bait; in China and Japan, they are even considered edible for humans.

But a report on an inspection conducted on the Bay by a five-member DENR team last Oct. 5 did acknowledge an abnormal bloom at the shore.

Green tide is not new, having already caused much destruction elsewhere. It has altered ecosystems in the shallow Wadden Sea, bordering Denmark, Germany and Netherlands. It has also been observed in Ireland’s Bannow Bay, the Mediterranean Sea and in the Caribbean islands of Jamaica, Belize, Bermuda and the Bahamas. In the United States, green tide has wreaked havoc in the Florida Keys and Hawaii.

In all of these bloom episodes, land-based pollution, mostly by human hands, was found to have, directly or indirectly, triggered the overgrowth.

The DENR, however, apparently does not consider the ABI as having much of a hand in the green tide here. In its inspection report, the DENR took care to emphasize that the beach was “littered with plastic, coconut husks and garbage.” More importantly, contrary to the fishers’ observation that the bloom began by the brewery’s effluents outfall, the team said the bloom was “about 300 meters away from the outfall.”

Florencio Dominguez Jr., chief of the DENR-10 environmental quality monitoring office, said the algae were also observed in adjacent barangays. In addition, beds of algae were seen growing in Opol, about eight kms east of the bloom site, and in Laguindingan town, about 18 kms west of El Salvador.

Dominguez also argued: “(Macajalar Bay) is such a large body of water. You know, just a single industry with the most modern wastewater treatment facility would cause that (bloom)? We have to study several factors, consider many variables—tides, wave action, currents, winds.”

According to the DENR official, it is most likely that untreated sewage leaching from villagers’ septic tanks, the town slaughterhouse and run-offs from farms using fertilizers with nitrogen and phosphates have contributed to the bloom—that is, he said, if indeed the bloom is unnatural and caused by pollution.

Admitted Dominguez: “(We) don’t have much knowledge about these algae.” In truth, despite the official view on the nature of the algae, he still believes the algae grew as floating mats in the oceans and were dispersed to shore by the currents.

And while he recognizes the need to study these algae, Dominguez said this is already beyond the bounds of DENR and is the responsibility of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).

For all the reassurances of Paragas and the evasiveness of Dominguez, however, the team that inspected the bloom site last October was obviously aware of the possibility of nutrients overload within the Sitio Alo ecosystem. Thus, it recommended that “the effluents and seawater be tested for levels of nitrates and phosphates and the laboratory results will determine whether the levels of nutrients coming from the firm’s effluents is (sic) sufficient to cause the abnormal proliferation of green algae in the area.”

To his credit, Paragas let water samples of the effluents in ABI and its vicinity be taken as well as control samples from other stations in western Macajalar Bay. These were deep frozen, and sent for analysis last October and November to the DENR central laboratory in Manila. The tests were for biological oxygen demand, coliform and suspended solids.

The results of the tests were ready by January. According to Paragas, the findings “indicate that there are trace levels of nitrogen and phosphates in seawater and ABI effluents.” But he also said that “nitrates (levels) are even higher in the coastal waters of Opol and Alubijid (where there are no blooms) in comparison with those collected from the seawater at the vicinity of ABI.”

Paragas added that he emphasized the presence of nitrates levels since seawaters are nitrogen-limited, meaning the growth of the plants like algae depend on the amounts of nitrogen.

“Based on actual survey, there are plenty of potential source of nutrients which are located along the Bay,” he said. “These are fishponds, industries, commercial and residential establishments and agricultural run-offs.”

Paragas said available data simply did not point to the brewery as a major cause for the bloom. He even noted that analysis of the ABI effluents showed that the discharges were “found to be compliant with established standards.”

These are standards set for Class SC waters, the classification for Macajalar Bay. Class SC waters include those used for recreational and commercial and sustenance fishing as well as marshy mangrove and areas declared as fish and wildlife sanctuaries.

Paragas suggested that “further in-depth study” was required. But activists have remained insistent about the ABI’s role in the emergence of green tide here. “(It) is premature to exculpate ABI yet,” said Orlando Ravanera, spokesperson of the environmental watchdog Task Force Macajalar (TFM) that helped organize the fisherfolk here. “How I wish the DENR people would consider the plight of the fishers, their experience because they are suffering 24 hours a day and are directly affected by the bloom.”

He also said the DENR has been too swift in laying the blame largely on the residents here. “Why is it that they (fishers) the poor victims of environmental degradation themselves are routinely blamed instead of giant industries?” he asked. “Why must they (DENR-10) accuse the fishers when they have not done any testing or study at all on the fishers’ domestic wastes?”

That the green group harbors distrust against the DENR-10 is not surprising. TFM has had collisions with the office before on various environmental issues in Northern Mindanao, ranging from illegal logging to the deterioration of Macajalar Bay.

As for ABI, this much is on record at the DENR-10: in 1993, the brewery pleaded guilty of having violated Republic Act 1586 for starting operations without an environmental compliance certificate (ECC). ABI paid a fine of P50,000. Its ECC, signed by then DENR Secretary Angel Alcala, was issued on Jan. 13, 1994, a year after it began brewing and bottling three brands of beer.

Company officials, however, deny that the brewery has anything to do with the bloom. “Our wastewater treatment plant is state-of- the-art, the most advanced in the field,” said Bertilo Lim, in-charge of the treatment facilities the ABI. He said the treatment plant uses cultured anaerobic and aerobic bacteria to rid the effluents of the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus before the wastewater is discharged to the sea.

Plant Manager Ricardo Co also pointed out that the brewery uses only caustic soda (sodium hydroxide), never industrial detergents, in its bottling operations. “It (sodium hydroxide) is a conventional cleanser used to sanitize bottles in the industry,” he explained. As it is, he added, the plant is now operating below its maximum capacity of five million hectoliters and is discharging less than 3,000 cubic meters of wastewater a day. According to Co, the plant’s actual capacity is only two million hectoliters yearly daily wastewater discharges averages 1,800 cubic meters.

In the face of the apparent differences between the stakeholders—DENR, ABI and business, on one hand, and the complainant fishers and activists, on the other hand—the PCIJ decided to commission an independent sampling and analysis of the waters here.

The testing was aimed at clarifying the cause of the persistent bloom. The results of the PCIJ tests conducted by university researchers as well as the official DENR findings were then shown to both local and foreign marine scientists for comments.

What most of them had to say was not reassuring at all.