LEGAZPI City—The much-awaited operation of the vaunted pumping stations is expected to rid this coastal city from perennial flooding that often render business establishments closing shop and work stoppage, according to Mayor Noel Rosal.
That is, if the third station is completed.
In a news briefing, Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Region 5 Information Officer Lucy Castañeda said control of the pumping stations project is with Rosal, based on a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the DPWH and the Legazpi City government.
On the other hand, Egan Nuñez, an engineer with the DPWH, said the pumping stations have yet to be turned over to the city, as the third pumping station in Barangay Victory has yet to be completed.
Nuñez said under the MOA, the city government would operate and maintain the pumping stations once these are completed and turned over.
An official of the Sunwest Construction and Development Corp. implementing the project said they planned to test the two completed pumping stations in Barangays San Roque and Pigcale during Typhoon Nona but there was no flooding. The official who spoke on condition of anonymity, as he lacks authority to speak about the project, said the MOA between the DPWH and the Legazpi City government had already been signed.
The three pumping stations are at the neighboring rivers straddling the villages of San Roque, Pigcale and Victory. A government report said the major pumping station in Barangay Victory has so far not been completed.
The pumping station at this village would clear the 5-kilometer-long Macabalo River.
Funds
ROSAL said the construction of the pumping stations was part of a P2.1-billion flood-control project. Only P335 million was allotted for construction of the pumping stations.
Rosal said other parts of the total fund went to the widening and concreting of creeks and construction of other major flood-control projects in the city.
Nuñez explained that only P1.3 billion has so far been spent of the P2.1-billion budget for the flood- control project.
The construction of the stations was planned in 2008, after Typhoon Reming devastated the province in November 2007, according to Rosal. Close to 2,000 people were killed in the province of Albay, government records show.
Houses in the city were submerged in as much as 4 meters of floodwater, while a thousand homes in the towns of Camalig and Daraga near the 150-meter-wide Yawa River were either washed out or buried, Rosal said.
Rawis
DPWH Assistant Regional Director Armando Estrella said they expect the flood-control project would also solve flooding in Barangay Rawis and transportation toward the first district would not be affected.
The Rawis flood control project formed part of the P145 million expansion to four lanes of the two-lane 130-meter long Yawa Bridge, according to Don Asejo, information officer of the Albay Second District Engineering Office undertaking the project.