Part Three
WITH the increasing population and expansion of service areas of both Maynilad Water Services Inc., Manila Water Co. Inc. and the Bulacan Bulk Water project, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) is eyeing to serve around 20 million people by the end of the Duterte administration.
Aside from the construction of the Kaliwa Dam, the government is also looking at the construction of the Laiban Dam and the revival of the Wawa Dam. The former can store up to 1,800 million liters per day (MLD) of water.
The MWSS is also eyeing additional water capacity with the ongoing project of Manila Water to source additional 50 MLD from Laguna de Bay and 150 MLD for Maynilad through the Putatan Expansion project.
MWSS Administrator Reynaldo V. Velasco said the regulator will be forming a new technical working group comprising of the MWSS, Maynilad, Manila Water and Luzon Water to map out a new 10-year road map or development plan on new water sources that will zero-in on ongoing and future projects.
“Having these additional flagship projects approved and started in the next five years would be enough water security and legacy of the Duterte administration for the next generations of Filipinos,” he said.
Opposition
AS the construction of large dams has been debated in many parts of the world, the issue of constructing large dams in the Philippines also triggered howls of protest. The issues raised range from lack of consultative process to alleged failure of the government to conduct more in-depth study of its impacts and a comprehensive and science-based risk assessment.
Critics also assailed government for failing to identify the positive and negative effects of the large dams or undertaking a cost-benefit analysis to back such undertaking.
While the Duterte administration is determined to push for the construction of the Kaliwa Dam and other large dams, such as the Laiban Dam and the revival of the Wawa Dam, some groups are not as excited. Critics have cited the potential risks to the communities downstream and adverse socioeconomic and environmental impacts of building large dams.
Citing a report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD), titled “Dams and Development of a New Framework,” environmental advocate Clemente Bautista said large dams are proven to have adverse impacts, aside from the huge cost of such infrastructure.
The WCD report said dams have made an important and significant contribution to human development. However, the WCD said in too many cases an acceptable and often unnecessary price has been paid to secure those benefits, especially in social and environmental terms, by people displaced, by communities downstream, by taxpayers and by the natural environment.
In a telephone interview, Bautista told the BusinessMirror even indigenous peoples strongly oppose large dams.
“Large-dam projects are environmentally destructive, not economically beneficial and cause social disruptions, such as the displacement of affected communities,” said Bautista, national coordinator of the environmental organization Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment.
Adverse impact
BAUTISTA said the construction and operation of large dams eventually leads to flooding of terrestrial ecosystems, killing the natural habitats of species in surrounding areas. Hence there results to biodiversity loss, he explained.
“[A large dam] has been proven to have adverse impacts as shown in a study by the WCD,” Bautista said. “They induce earthquake, they cause flooding and contribute to carbon emission.”
He cited one of the adverse impacts of large dams is the destruction of forests as dams tend to accumulate a huge volume of water with the construction of the vertical structure to prevent the natural flow of water through rivers.
“There is also a study wherein large dams can induce earthquake,” Bautista added.
In the end, large dams are not economically beneficial, first because it entails huge investment, and second, it is costly to the environment and communities, he said. “Third, it is difficult to maintain as it reaches the end of the lifespan or cycle.”
He added the ecosystem in fish-producing rivers are also affected by the construction and operation of dams, citing the case of salmons, that make the journey from the ocean into raging rivers to breed in lakes upstream.
He said as large dams are constructed, certain freshwater species that breed up in bodies of waters streams are prevented from reaching their breeding sites, thereby preventing reproduction.
“Definitely, dams will lead to biodiversity loss as it prevents certain freshwater species from breeding because of the structures,” Bautista said.
Many upland dwellers depend on natural lakes because naturally, they provide food, such as freshwater fishes as fish breed the lake.
Freshwater species become extinct in dams as the government starts to release fingerlings invasive alien fish species like tilapia and bangus to boost fisheries
production, Bautista claims.
Worse, as dams prevent the natural flow of water in rivers and streams, it also affects the natural regeneration of forests downstream, eventually affecting its productivity, he added.
Management issues
ACCORDING to Bautista, large dams will eventually be the subject of privatization. He added the government needs to pass on the burden of maintaining the dam to the private sector.
“In the Philippines the management of dams is a major issue, because of the failure of the government to stop the degradation of watersheds where dams are built,” he said.
Bautista and his group advises against the construction of large dams, especially because of the lack of capacity of the government to protect and conserve forests and ensure the structural integrity of dams in the long run.
“Dams are constructed in watershed areas. But because our watersheds are already degraded, large dams accumulate silts because of soil erosion,” he explained. “As dams become silted, like in the Angat Dam, the capacity of the dam to store water is reduced.”
Bautista said the San Roque Multi-Purpose Dam has been adversely affected by the environmental degradation, which was aggravated by mining activities. Foremost of the latter is when mine tailings of Philex Mines dumped 2 million tons of mud into the Balog Creek and Agno River.
The National Power Corp., which is operating the San Roque Dam, filed a case against Philex and sought for P6.4 billion to compensate for the damage and the lost revenues the spill caused.
Currently, some of the dams in the Philippines are now privately run or privately managed, and the production of electricity is not even benefitting the communities,
according to Bautista.
Worse, he said some dams built for irrigation, as well, such as Angat, are often deprived of much-needed water, because of the conflicts with power generation and domestic supply for Metro Manila.
To be concluded