METRO WATER SUPPLY ADEQUATE - DAM OFFICIALS
[PHOTO
AT LEFT - A man walks on the soil bed of Magat Dam in Ramon, Isabela, the
province most affected by El Niño. Water levels in dams across the country have
been dropping to near record lows due to the dry spell caused by the weather
phenomenon. Ernie Penaredondo]
MALOLOS CITY, MARCH 5, 2010 (STAR) By Dino Balabo - There will be sufficient water supply in Metro Manila despite the dwindling water level in the Angat Dam, water authorities said yesterday.
Water release for irrigation in the provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga, however, will be reduced because the dam’s water level is likely to drop to a critical 180 meters in a month.
The Angat Dam supplies 97 percent of Metro Manila’s potable water requirement.
Engineer Rodolfo German, manager of the Angat River Hydroelectric Power Plant, said that the dam’s water level yesterday dropped to 190.5 meters.
The dam’s water level drops an average of one meter every three days. Without rain, the dam is now relying on inflows of nine cubic meters per second from the Umiray River in Quezon province that passes through the 13-kilometer Umiray-Angat Transbasin Project tunnel.
“We still have enough water for Metro Manila until the end of summer. Hopefully, we’ll have rains by April and May so that there will be no need for water rationing and that local farmers can start preparing their farmlands,” German told The STAR yesterday.
German said the water level in Angat Dam is fast receding because of its funnel-like shape. The wider surface causes more water to evaporate while the narrower bottom holds less water.
“It’s not due to over distribution of water in Metro Manila, since we even decreased allocation there. It’s partly due to evaporation, but mainly due to the funnel shape of the reservoir,” he said.
He said, however, that farmers in Bulacan and Pampanga will need less water for irrigation because they will be harvesting their crops in April and May.
German said they could not conduct cloud seeding because there are no thick clouds.
Redentor Gatus, head of the regional office of the Department of Agriculture in Central Luzon, earlier said the aircraft to be used in cloud seeding remains on standby at the Plaridel Airport.
Meanwhile, the water level in the Magat Dam in the Isabela-Ifugao border has dropped to 155 meters, way below the normal water level of 183 meters, decreasing its capacity to generate power and provide irrigation for farmlands in Cagayan Valley.
The water level measurement as of yesterday afternoon was the second lowest for the 30-year-old dam since the 149-meter water level recorded in July 1991, said dam engineer Saturnino Tenedor of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA).
Tenedor said the water in the dam’s reservoir will only last until the end of the month unless there would be rainfall in the next few days.
“By that time (end of March), we expect that most of the farmers had already harvested their produce, thereby lessening the need for irrigation,” he said.
Because of the low water level in Magat Dam, its power plant, now owned and operated by the Norwegian-Filipino consortium SN Aboitiz Power, is also operating at less than normal capacity.
Magat Dam normally generates a maximum of 350 megawatts of power for the Luzon grid and provides irrigation to 80,000 hectares of farmlands in Isabela and parts of Cagayan and Quirino.
Other dams experiencing declining water levels are Ipo dam in Bulacan, La Mesa dam in Quezon City, Ambuklao and Binga dams in Benguet, Pantabangan dam in Nueva Ecija, and San Roque dam in Pangasinan.
President Arroyo, who visited drought-ravaged Isabela on Tuesday, said the government is doing everything it can to prevent a power shortage.
The President said the blackouts are not caused by the El Niño phenomenon but by mechanical troubles in the Masinloc (in Zambales) and Sual (in Pangasinan) coal-fired power plants, which were supposed to support the hydroelectric plants.
She said there will be enough power supply in the country once the coal-fired power plants resume normal operations. -With Charlie Lagasca