HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The western corner of the Vicente A. Limtiaco Memorial Cemetery, where hundreds of Guamanians have been laid to rest, has been turned into an illegal dumping ground for household garbage, including old sofas, water heaters and other unwanted appliances.
Roque Alcantara, Department of Parks and Recreation director, said the cemetery, also known as Tiguac, typically has two staffers present from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. to assist with burials and other tasks. He said there is green waste typically dumped near the cemetery, but the Department of Public Works handles that. Additionally, he added, there’s a contractor responsible for cutting the grass at the cemetery.
“Now, if there’s illegal dumping, we don’t know anything about that,” Alcantara said. “I do have two guys there daily so this must be happening in the evening because in the day, we’re up there.”
The public cemetery, located in Piti, falls under the purview of the Department of Parks and Recreation. The area is just above a ravine through which the Toguan River flows before emptying into Piti Bay. Alcantara said there’s a chain that his staff members lock in the evening when they leave the cemetery.
“We only have one gate in the front that we lock up, but people can go on the side — and we try to put barricades around the cemetery but I guess people find other entranceways,” he said.
Alcantara said he would send a team to assess and start the cleanup of the dumped furniture, appliances and household trash.
Piti Mayor Jesse Alig said he’s raised the issue of ensuring the cemetery is secured. His staffers check the cemetery on the weekends to ensure it’s locked, but they’ve noticed it isn’t always locked during the weekdays.
Alcantara said he’s not sure why that would be, but he would look into it.
Alig said he hasn’t received complaints from people who have seen the trash, but he has received calls from residents who saw others attempting to dump garbage.
“So the latest (report) was a resident who noticed…a pickup truck backing in with old air conditioners. But when the resident was taking pictures of them, they left,” Alig said. “I’ve also received a call where they felt someone was going in there with bulky trash and the resident followed them in and then they made a U-turn and went back out of the cemetery.”
Late last year, the Leon Guerrero-Tenorio administration announced it is working on a plan to provide trash collection services to all Guam residents.
“One of the reasons we’re pretty persistent on this universal trash collection is we feel this is a way to deter and eliminate illegal dumping,” Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero stated at the time.
There’s been no update on that plan.
Keeping watch
Alcantara said he used to have park rangers checking in on the cemetery, but, as people quit or retired, the department hasn’t been able to fill the positions quickly enough.
There are seven new rangers expected to join the team soon, he said. They were picked up through a recent recruitment effort. Two of the rangers will be starting in about two weeks, he said.
“The others still need to go through the drug test and all that,” Alcantara said.
He added that with the two already on staff, the nine park rangers would be sufficient to monitor the most popular DPR sites, which he said will include the cemetery.
Old furniture, children’s toys, five-gallon water bottles and other garbage litter a jungle area near the Vicente A. Limtiaco Memorial Cemetery at Nimitz Hill on Guam.
