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| AsiaViews, Edition: 47/VI/February2010 |
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| Philippine Capital Braces for Severe Drought |
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| A cow stands on a cracked and dried irrigation river in Escribano town, Batangas province, souh of Manila. PHOTO: REUTERS/ROMEO RANOCO |
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Talk about climate variability and residents of Metro Manila, the Philippine capital region, are just about to know first-hand what it is all about.
Just four months after the massive flooding that inundated almost 85 per cent of the metropolis and killed about 300 people in September, 14 million people living in Metro Manila and surrounding areas are facing the prospect of not getting enough drinking water this summer because of a severe drought caused by the El Nino weather pattern in the Pacific ocean.
The situation is not yet dire but local government officials are getting alarmed because the worst impact of drought, when drinking water supply could drop by as much as 25 per cent, coincides with upcoming elections in May. It could hurt the election prospects of incumbent mayors who will be blamed for not doing enough to assure sufficient water supply for their towns and cities.
During a dialogue on February 12 between local government executives and national water and power officials, the administrator of Taytay, a small city to the east of Manila, vented his ire on water regulators who asked city officials to close down underground wells to preserve aquifers in Metro Manila and avert possible ground subsidence due over-extraction of ground water.
“We worked with NWRB (National Water Regulatory Board) in closing down deep wells but now we feel that people will blame us this summer. You closed down deep wells but you actually don’t have water to distribute,” the official said. “If people get thirsty, they will pour their anger on us local officials.”
What makes it worse is the timing, he added, “considering it’s now the election season.”
Indeed, local officials and their constituents have reasons to be concerned.
Water level in Angat dam north of Manila, which supplies 97 per cent of the area’s water supply, is expected to drop sharply, according to the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), the government agency that oversees the water system in Metro Manila and surrounding areas. From 201.4 meters in the middle of January, Angat’s water elevation could drop to only 158 meters by June, off by more than a tenth from the lower boundary of the dam’s rule curve or seasonal average.
That is worse than the record low in more than a dozen years of 158.15 meters, reached in September 1998 when the country was in the midst of another El Nino weather phenomenon.
Maynilad Water Services Inc., one of two private water companies with which MWSS has a long-term concession agreement to manage the water system, said that close to a third of its service area in the western half of Metro Manila could experience low water pressure (below 7 psi) in March. About a tenth of its 6 million customers, especially those located in elevated areas, could suffer from intermittent water service, it added. About 9 million people reside in Maynilad’s service area but the company serves just about two-thirds of the population.
Its counterpart in the eastern half of the capital, Manila Water Co., which serves around 5.1 million residents, said the impact of the prolonged drought will be minimal in its service area. Only less than five per cent of its territory will experience lower than 7 psi in February and March, it said.
Manila Water officials explained that the minimal impact of the El Nino weather pattern in the company’s territory is due to the relatively better physical state of its distribution system, which loses only 15 per cent of water production compared to 59 per cent in the Maynilad service area.
The MWSS said that the impact of the El Nino weather pattern was apparent as early as in January when its water allocation from Angat dam averaged only 41 cubic meter per second (cms), 6.5 per cent below the normal 46 cms.
The shortfall is seen to worsen to 13 per cent in February when water allocation drops further to 40 cms, and to 17 per cent in March when the water allocation is cut further to 38 cms. By April, MWSS said the capital region could experience a 22 per cent shortfall in water supply as allocation drops further to 36 cms. The shortfall is seen to hit 24 per cent in May and June, when water allocation drops to the year’s low of 35 cms.
With the projected onset of the rains in the middle of the year, water allocation from Angat dam is expected to return to the normal level of 46 cms in July, the MWSS said.
To ensure enough drinking water for the capital, the MWSS is proposing to halve the amount of water being drawn for irrigation from Angat dam by March and cut it to zero beginning April. In January, the National Irrigation Administration was drawing about 34 cms of water for irrigating rice farms north of Manila. The Department of Agriculture is urging farmers to shift from rice, a thirsty crop, to vegetables which need less water.
Maynilad and Manila Water are also reactivating standby wells while installing static tanks and mobile water tankers in areas with inadequate water supply.
The MWSS said it will ask the central government to issue directives mandating water conservation measures such as prohibiting the watering of golf courses or frequent replacement of water in swimming pools.
But the water shortage in the Metro Manila cannot all be blamed on the El Nino weather pattern. More than anything, the problem underscores the government’s lack of investments to boost and diversify sources of water for the capital.
Even without the El Nino weather pattern, water supply is already beginning to get tight in the metropolis. Extra supply is seen to drop to only 15 million liters per day (MLD) next year from about 140 MLD in 2009, according to the Asian Development Bank.
Since the 1970s, the government had been keen to build a new 1,900 MLD dam in Laiban, east of the capital, to boost drinking water supply for Metro Manila but the plans never came close to being implemented. In the 1980s, the proposed Laiban dam project always lost out to expanding the existing Angat dam, a less costly alternative to boost water supply.
In 2007, the Philippines began talks with China on a $1 billion loan to fund the Laiban dam project but discussions fizzled out because of a kickbacks scandal involving another proposed China-funded project.
Private investors have expressed interest in undertaking the project under a public-private partnership arrangement but no deal has been firmed up yet. What is holding up the deal’s approval are objections from economic planners and the water companies to provisions in the agreement that could require the MWSS, Manila Water and Maynilad to shoulder most of the commercial risk.
Neither has the MWSS implemented any of the short-term measures to boost water supply, including a plan to put up a water processing facility to draw between 100 and 300 MLD of water from a freshwater lake near Metro Manila. It had been inviting private investors to carry out the project since the late 1990s but failed to close a deal. Maynilad is now carrying out the project itself.
A water shortage is a terrible price that the 15 million residents of Metro Manila and surrounding areas will be paying for the government’s lack of effective planning. It will be worse if it does not lead to strong government resolve to start projects that will address the metropolitan area’s water needs in both the short and long term. Then it will be another case of a crisis that’s gone to waste. |
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| By Roel Landingin, NEWSBREAK |
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| Asiaviews, Vol.III No.10 February - March 2010 |
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