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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Brace for water rationing amid COVID-19

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"Everyone should conserve water."

 

It's bad enough that the country is already reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. It's going to get worse with an imminent water crisis in Metro Manila as we enter the dry season.

We're likely to experience extended water supply rationing because of the reduced water allocation from Angat Dam, which supplies 97 percent of Metro Manila’s water requirements.

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The two concessionaires in Metro Manila will implement a rotational water supply system. They have given assurances, however, that no household will have to suffer a lack of water for 24 hours straight. 

The two concessionaires now serve some 16.5 million consumers combined in the east and west zones of Metro Manila and some parts of Rizal, Laguna, Cavite and Bulacan. 

Since we are likely to endure another rationing scheme in the summer months, every consumer should conserve water.  Turning off the tap when not in use and recycling water whenever possible are just among the many ways to save water. 

While rotational water service interruptions are likely to happen, the two water concessionaires have also assured their customers that they have already crafted mitigation plans as early as last year,  and are now implementing proactive measures to ease Metro Manila’s water woes this summer. 

Maynilad Water Services Inc. has already announced that it will mount cloud-seeding operations and deploy modular water treatment plants that will draw water from small rivers in Cavite. 

The cloud-seeding operations will start this month depending on the weather report from PAGASA on whether there are seedable clouds near Angat Dam.

Maynilad is also optimizing the use of its two Putatan water treatment facilities in Muntinlupa, and reactivating several deep wells to increase Metro Manila’s water supply. The Putatan treatment plants now produce 300 million liters of per day of water drawn from Laguna Lake. 

Maynilad, which supplies water to Metro Manila’s west zone, is also reducing water leaks through the replacement of pipes and other repairs. 

It should be pointed out that the concessionaire inherited one of the oldest pipe networks in Asia, with some segments dating back to the Spanish times. After pouring millions worth of investments, the company has already replaced over 2,500 kilometers of old pipes and repaired more than 360,000 pipe leaks since 2008. 

These measures will definitely benefit consumers as these have resulted in supply recovery for distribution to customers.

Maynilad was expected last month to complete its NRW (non-revenue water) or leakage reduction program, which will add another 94 MLD.

In December last year,  Maynilad finished reactivating deep wells to supply another 94 MLD. It is expected to soon finish its Cavite dam, which will provide another 27 MLD.

On top of all this, Maynilad is taking more mitigation steps, such as deploying 69 mobile water tankers and putting up 32 stationary water tankers.

With its NRW management program, Maynilad has managed to recover 979 MLD daily—a volume large enough to fill 390 Olympic-size pools per day that can supply potable water to 1.7-M households in the metropolis.

According to Maynilad, the duration of service interruptions per area is dependent on the hydraulic configuration of the pipelines. This means that some areas will experience longer or shorter service interruptions owing to their location (i.e., areas that are low in elevation, are near Maynilad’s reservoirs and pumping stations, and are conduits to reach fringe areas will naturally have shorter service interruptions).

The implementation of daily rotational service interruptions will be in effect for as long as the raw water allocation given to Maynilad from Angat Dam is below its requirement. These reduced allocations will remain in effect until June 2020.

As the number of water users increased exponentially since then, the water supply problem has been compounded by erratic weather, including unpredictable rainfall due to global warming and climate change.

We are glad that the national government has already set in motion the long-delayed construction of the Kaliwa Dam as the national capital’s alternate water supply reservoir. But this will take four to five years to build at the cost of P12.2 billion.

In other words, the water woes of Metro Manila residents would get worse in the next half-decade before we get any relief by 2025. Hence, everyone should conserve water if we do not want a repeat of the water shortage we experienced last year.

ernhil@yahoo.com

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