Silverquest Mining Resources Inc. (SMRI), an offshore mining firm, is eyeing the massive extraction of sand and other quarry materials in the municipal waters of Ternate and Naic in Cavite.
The firm is currently in the process of securing its environmental compliance certificate (ECC) from the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for the P12-billion SMRI Government Seabed Quarry Project.
The project involves the dredging of mud, silt, sand and dredged materials from the seabed for the 318-hectare Manila Waterfront Project, a 5-year, P34.377-billion land reclamation and development project of the local government of Manila and Waterfront Manila Premier Development in Manila’s South Harbor.
The document prepared by Prism Express Consulting Inc. in collaboration with Environment & Climate Change Advisers Inc. for the SMRI, which was submitted the DENR-EMB is part of mandatory requirements for such environmentally critical project under Environmental Impact Statement law.
The execution of dredging works could only be undertaken upon securing a Government Seabed Quarry Permit, or GSQP, from Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), but other major requisites are the ECC, Letters of No Objections or LONO from concerned government entities; and the approval of Design and Engineering Details (DED), which are typically undertaken after the ECC is secured.
The quarry site is 42 kilometers away from the Manila Waterfront Project, which got its ECC from the DENR-EMB in 2018.
The proposed seabed quarry site has an area of 2,124.3581 hectares off the coast of Cavite in Manila Bay and has a deposit of some 2 billion cubic meters (cu. m.) of quarry materials.
The Manila Waterfront Project, which would require massive land reclamation and also referred to dump-and-fill, needs at least 60 million cu. m. of backfilling materials, according to the document.
“The primary aim or objective of the SMRI Seabed Quarry Project is to provide the suitable dredge fill materials to the planned Manila Waterfront City Reclamation project, which already secure ECC from EMB sometime July 18, 2018. Thus, the fill materials for reclamation must be composed of the same or similar materials as specified by reclamation design. It must be economical, environmentally safe, and expeditious to develop. The materials to be dredged are mostly made of mud, silt, sand and some rocky materials, which specifications are shown below,” SMRI document stated.
According to the seabed quarry project proponent, the environmental effects of sand and gravel extraction may include physical effects such as the modification of sea bottom topography, the creation of turbidity plumes, substrate alteration, changes in the local wave and current patterns, which may reach near the coast and the distance is relatively close to Ternate or Naic.
The proponent also said that biological effects of dredging might include changes in the density, diversity, biomass, and community structure of the benthos or fish populations as a consequence of the physical effects on the quarry site.
A total of four sea vessels or ships will be used to dredge into the designated quarry area, which is devoid of coral cover.
According to SMRI, it would not be the first time that such area for seabed quarry was considered for the source of dredging materials in Manila Bay.
The firm said that a previous Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) done in 2007 has identified the San Nicolas Shoal (SNS) as a prime area for dredging.
Subsequently, a Government Seabed Quarry Permit was issued to the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) in August of 2008, which an Environmental Impact Statement Report noted the absence of major marine species in the area.
“It also indicated no coral cover in the area except for some 2 percent to 4 percent coral cover in the Municipality of Ternate; the rest of the SNS quarry area has no coral communities,” it added.
According to the proponent, considering a yearly production rate of 8,932,000 cubic meters, the total dredging operations will take some six years and seven months and would yield about 60 million cubic meters of dredged materials.
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