Baguio water shortage looms

BAGUIO CITY - With summer and the threat of El Nino, the Baguio Water District maybe hard put to provide the city’s water needs.

This as the influx of tourists to the city is expected the next few days especially with the street parade and the float parade late this month climaxing the 35 day long Baguio Flower Festival, demands are expected to skyrocket.

But BWD general manager Teresita de Guzman said they are ready to supply the city’s water needs despite the threat of the phenomenon when rains come in seldom.

"We are not experiencing the [El Niño] phenomenon for the first time. We have been able to cope with it for the last years," de Guzman said.

Deep wells remain to be the BWD’s main source of water and these will supply the city’s water needs during the dry season which has already commenced until the wet season that starts June.

However, the district will be constrained to ration water to consumers, rationing that will see taps dry for more than half of the week.

Despite these assurances, water shortages remain said former mayor Bernardo Vergara, who added that problems of the BWD should have been solved if the bulk water supply project was pursued a few years back.

The project, which will tap 50,000 cubic meters of water daily to augment the city’s 55,000 cubic meter production could have allowed consumers enjoy water from their taps more often in the week.

The BWD in 2008 has likewise assured that they can be able to supply water to the consumers with the completion of the Australian aided water systems rehabilitation program, the other component of the district’s ambitious supply project started 15 years ago.

This component was meant to reduce systems losses which reportedly runs to 55 percent, if completed, but only a third of the district’s water pipes were rehabilitated with the P550 million loan being insufficient.

“It is only with the bulk water that we are assured of a continuous supply of water daily. And it could have been done at the same time the district fixes its water systems,” said Vergara, who during his three term as congressman was able to assist in procuring the P550 million Australian loan.

“If we have stayed in office, then we could have solved the city’s water problem,” he added.
In 1995, the BWD undertook the first BWSP but after three years, it was abandoned when the winning bidders simply could not find water enough to assure the 50,000 cubic meter daily requirement.

That also delayed the start of the systems rehabilitation program, until the Asian Financial Crisis hit jacking up cost of materials that saw the project reduced in scope.

With fund luck, the rehabilitation project was reduced that area 3 of the city’s three areas of distribution was shelved.

BWD needs to get another loan to introduce improvements at said area.

In 2005, the BWD undertook the second BWSP with Benguet Corporation getting the contract only to be shelved anew due to the opposition of then mayor Braulio Yaranon.

Meanwhile, the consumers are expected to shell out more for a dwindling volume of water as the BWD imposes a yearly increase for five years that started after the completion of the Australian aid loan in 2008. -- Dexter A. See