The national emergency commission has selected a contractor to pick up the garbage in the Cantón de Tibás for six months. The firm is WWP, the trash hauler, and the contract went into effect Monday.

Tibás has been buried in garbage during a dispute of several years over municipal finances. Trash bags are stacked high in vacant lots. They are 10 deep along the canton’s roads. Smart residents are smuggling their trash into San José for municipal pickup there.

The Comisión Nacional de la Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias will be investing 148 million colons, some $287,000. Commission President Daniel Gallardo said the accumulated garbage will be picked up in 15 days and then the company will maintain normal pickups.

The six months will give the municipality time to get its finances in order, he said.

The commission acted May 23 to end what it considered a health menace. The trash and plastic bags created pockets of water where dengue-bearing mosquitoes could breed. There also was an increase in rats.

The Ministerio de Salud termed the situation an immediate danger, not only for Tibás but for the capital to the south. It took two months to accept bids and get the proposed contract approved.