Cabanatuan City”•The National Irrigation Administration’s Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation Systems, operator of the Pantabangan Dam, has declared as “El Niño-free” some 136,848.39 hectares of agricultural land in Central Luzon.
Rosalinda B. Bote, acting UPRIIS manager, made the declaration in a press briefing and said the areas will not be affected by the dry spell brought about by El Niño.
Bote said this was possible because of the high water elevation at the Pantabangan Dam, which as of Thursday was 204.107 meters above sea level, way above the critical level of 172 meters.
Bote said the 125,848.39 hectares programmed for irrigation this dry season included an additional 10,000 hectares in Casecnan and 1,500 hectares in the tail-end portion of Pantabangan Dam’s service areas in Arayat and Candaba in Pampanga, San Miguel and San Ildefonso in Bulacan, and the Nueva Ecija towns of Cabiao, Licab, and Guimba.
UPRIIS has a total service area of 130,000 hectares covering Nueva Ecija and parts of Bulacan and Pampanga.
Bote said there was enough water to irrigate farmlands up to April 22, the end of the dry cropping season.
“With the high water level at the Pantabangan Dam, we can say that we are El Niño-free insofar as UPRIIS is concerned,” she said.
The El Niño-free declaration is expected to be a welcome reprieve among farmers who were told in October 2014 that some 39,000 hectares of their agricultural land would not be receiving irrigation water from Pantabangan Dam due to El Niño.
Then UPRIIS manager Florentino David warned that the water deprivation could affect at least 20,000 farmers this dry season, which he blamed on the low water level at the Pantabangan Dam recorded at 191.91 meters on Oct. 14.
Then, UPRIIS only programmed for irrigation 120,800.30 hectares out of the total service area.
During a stakeholder meeting recently, Bote announced that their service areas would not be affected by El Niño.
Czarina Umali has urged local chief executives and UPRIIS to continue monitoring the supply of water.
Earlier, the provincial government funded the improvement of the Peñaranda River Irrigation System or Penris in southern Nueva Ecija to cushion the impact of El Niño, which last hit the country in 2014 and which breaks out every four to five years.
Bote said UPRIIS will impose water conservation measures to make sure farmlands will not be deprived of irrigation.
She said many creeks in the province were teeming with water.
“We will never release water unless needed. That is what we will strictly adhere to,” Bote said.