Water woes hound tourist town folks

By Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province -- Despite an available P36 million fund, the projected Buasaw waterworks of the local municipality here has not yet reached the final verdict of implementation having stopped on the issue of whether the Tanulong people will give in the Boasaw waters or not.

Kagawad Vincent Bacdayan from Tanulong’s sister barangay Madongo said during a recent Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management Project meeting in Bontoc that there is still no fixed decision on the Boasaw waters as source for the proposed Sagada waterworks.

Boasaw Creek sourcing its waters from the thick communal tri-watersheds of Mengmeng, Ominney and Mabullibo located within the common environs of Aguid and nearby Agawa of Besao, is eyed as a potential water source for the 2500 households of Sagada .

The proposed project is funded by an already received P18 million priority development assistance funds from Senator Teofisto Guingona 111 and an 18 million from CHARMP. A total of P50 million is proposed for the project. Peter Ticag a resident of Tanulong said during the recently held Sagada Watershed Summit last May 27 that there are “conditions not met,”

Ticag’s statement jibes with an earlier documentation here north of the municipality where Tanulong residents and officials wants to ensure that the Boasaw waterworks shall reach Tanulong.

The people of Tanulong have all the reasons to be wary, Vice Mayor Richard Yodong said. An earlier 2002 Boasaw waterworks project laid out pipes and passed by Madongo with no waters received by the said village. Currently, Tanulong faces difficulty in bringing Boasaw waters to their irrigation canal due to clogged pipes. It takes time to disconnect pipes clogged with plant roots to take these out then connect the tubes again, it was
learned from Tanulong farmer-irrigators.

Although some technical explanations point to the reason that such may be due to pipes located in lower elevations not able to reach higher irrigation canals towards Tanulong.

The P50 million waterworks project intends to build irrigation canals going to Tanulong and Madongo’s rice fields; and a water system that shall reach the household barangays of Sagada, Municipal Engr Siano Baldo said in an earlier interview.

The poblacion where tourist establishments are located including water-strapped barangays of Kiltepan tribes of the eastern zone of the town are in dire need of water.

The waterworks intend to get water from the upper stream locating the water dam of Tanulong along Boasaw Creek. Otherwise, the lower stream is eyed as another, Barangay Captain Maximo Suyon of northern Aguid said.

The Boasaw waters locates two dams- the Tanulong dam at the upper stream and the Agawa dam at the lower stream.Affirming Suyon’s statement, Tanulong Kagawad Michael Depidep of Tanulong during the recent CHARM meeting said that the lower stream below the Agawa dam would be a most feasible source. Hesitance of the Tanulong and Madongo tribes to release the Boasaw waters apparently traces from earlier accords with the adjoining Agawa tribe.

An agreement in 1972 reveal that the Agawa people will not claim for their use or for anybody’s use any water springing above and flowing into the dam of the Tanulong irrigation works. The Tanulong people also will not claim water below their dam.

Tanulong Kagawad Domingo Amogawen is now hesitant that the people of Agawa will go further up Mabullibo spring atop the Tanulong dam should there be any approval by the i-Tanulong on the Sagada waterworks to tap from their (Tanulong) dam.

Another source of hesitation springs from a 2002 agreement that “should there be anyone allowed to connect from the dam of Tanulong, the umili of Agawa, Tanulong and Madongo has the right to cut off the pipes” installed. The agreement further noted that, if somebody is allowed to tap at the upper stream, Agawa people shall also be allowed.

Yet Yodong said an earlier statement early this year during a visit at the Buasaw Creek by officials from Besao and Sagada noted that officials and elders of Besao is open about the waters of Boasaw reaching the Sagada people. A number of Sagadians married i-Agawa people. “Should they be denying their own relatives, brothers and sisters the waters they badly need?’ he asked.

The hesitance apparently bordered on the lack of water supply of the village upon the installation of the waterworks to Sagada.

Though Dr. Matthew Tauli, director of Sagada-based Montanosa Research and Development Center (MRDC) said there is enough water for Tanulong and Madongo and Sagada community. At least 38 liters per second Boasaw water discharge was registered at the peak of summer time as noted by MRDC technical staff Roger Lambino. What more during the rainy season?

To ensure waters shall go the Tanulong, a one to two inch pipe is projected to reach Sagada tapped from a 6 inch pipe accessing the waters of Boasaw. Waters passing through the remaining four to five inch pipe shall lead to Tanulong and Madongo.

The 6 inch pipe limitation is based at an earlier 2002 agreement between and among tribes of Gueday, Agawa and Lacmaan of Besao and Madongo and Tanulong of Sagada. The agreement stated that only a 6 inch pipe in diameter is allowed to be connected to the Tanulong dam with reference to the irrigation project of CHARMP then in 2002.

The 2002 agreement further noted that only the 6-inch pipe shall remain along the Buasaw creek leading to the dam of Tanulong and Madongo and all other connections cut off.