Previous Story
BEH failed to issue PSS permits
|
Posted on Sep 10 2008
Because the Bureau of Environmental Health failed to issue sanitation permits to 22 public schools, Gov. Benigno Fitial was forced to use his administrative authority to address water quality issues that delayed the start of four schools this week, BEH manager John Tagabuel said yesterday.
“It is BEH responsibility to make sure and I failed by not having BEH office enforce that issuance of permit,” Tagabuel said in an e-mail.
Under the Commonwealth Environmental Health and Sanitation Act of 2000, a health inspector must visit all schools—public or private, kindergarten through college—and declare the school sanitary before the school is allowed to purchase a permit. Permits are renewed annually.
BEH did not follow up or enforce the law with school management, Tagabuel said. Schools are regularly inspected once of twice a year.
The issue came to light when Fitial asked the Department of Public Health to create a task force that would check the preparedness of the public schools in light of the island’s continuing power crisis.
Tagabuel said the situation would be corrected and permits would be distributed.
“I’m not a betting man,” he said in the e-mail. “However, Sanitary Permit application along with [the] inspection report will be issue[d] to school administrators from this day forward on [an] annual basis.”
He said that non-compliance will be dealt with using the same procedures as the other regulated establishments: issuance of a verbal warning or warning letter, imposition of late penalty fee, then recommendation for closure to the Secretary of Public Health.
Under normal circumstances, BEH can recommend to the Secretary of Public Health to close an establishment, but because there were no permits, the Department of Public Health recommended Fitial use his authority to delay the start of four schools—Marianas High School, Kagman Elementary, Koblerville Elementary and Oleai Head Star—earlier this week after they did not pass initial water quality tests.
