HAPPY
WEEKEND
Gina
Dizon
SAGADA,
MOUNTAIN PROVINCE - Vice Mayor Harry Baliaga of Besao has this to say about the
proposed windfarm atop the Langsayan- Pilaw ridge between Besao and Sagada
towns. The people should know disadvantages because what proponent
Philcarbon is saying is all about the good wind mills supposedly bring, he
said. He added that most people in his hometown share the same
sentiment.
The
top question that people from Besao and Sagada ask and want to know the
answer they shall be fully satisfied of, is the effect of windmills on springs
and the watershed. And for a wind farm which has not yet been erected
on any watershed in the country apart from windmills getting
protested in other countries proposed for construction on a watershed, this
exploratory Sagada-Besao windfarm project continues to receive questions
from residents.
Since
day one when Philcarbon went about proposing a wind farm to the people of
Sagada during the consultation May last year in Bangaan barangay, effect
on springs where sources domestic water and irrigation
for ricefields and gardens is their major concern. The
question remains unanswered and people are still asking, with some already set
in saying No to a project saying they don’t want the watershed disturbed.
Period.
Poblacion
Patay resident Henry Yamashita who owns a lot where finds a spring
sourced by a number of households in Dagdag
and Patay for their domestic and irrigation water says
he does not like the watershed disturbed as he does not like the springs
disturbed. The spring where water gushes from a rock supplies a number of
residents of barangays Patay and nearby Dagdag.
While
that is so, community leader and former high school teacher Soledad
Belingon emphasized in a recent consultation that the
public should know the advantages and the disadvantages of
the proposed windfarm to aid them in decision making
whether to give their consent or not to the building of the windfarm.
Manila-based
Philcarbon plans to build a 15 megawatt farm atop the Pilaw-Langsayan ridge.
Ten wind turbine posts are projected to be installed along this ridge covering
a 648 hectare windfarm project approved by the Department of Energy. The
ridge locates a critical watershed where finds springs that supply hundreds of
residents of northern and central Sagada and adjacent barangays of northern and
central Besao of precious water for domestic, commercial and agricultural use.
The
May consultation last year was emphatic about the need for a study on the
environmental effects of the wind farm. The public awaits presentation of a
study still not made public by Philcarbon.
A
second general assembly is yet to be scheduled by the communities affected
following the first general assembly conducted February this year with the
validation of results of an earlier field-based investigation. The presentation
asked more questions- effects of vibrations of windmills on water systems and
effect of noise the turbine propellers generate.
Philcarbon
plans to build the wind farm by 2014.
Present
during the May consultation, Provincial Environment and Natural Resources
Officer Manuel Pogeyed with masteral thesis on the customary batangan
system of forest protection is emphatic about Philcarbon taking note of local
particularities in their proposed project.
Sagada
is a basically an agricultural town visited by some 30,000 to some 50,000
tourists a year to include domestic visitors who conduct their seminars and
conferences here. Visitors make use of some waters sourced from springs cradled
by the Pilaw-Langsayan watershed with at least five major inns and
restaurants in Poblacion and Dagdag accessing their water here.
People
here while they engage in the tourism business also tend to their rice
fields and gardens along with the doing of cultural practices revolving
around continuity of water, abundant growth of riceplants, and good
harvest.
A
hundred and more households from Dagdag and Patay barangays make use of
water sourced from the Pilaw-Langsayan serving as the mother watershed
cradling water springs located in different nearby areas.
Too,
water from the Pilaw-Langsayan watershed and its adjacent areas forms part of
the Chico River fed by tributaries Balas-iyan and Amlusong rivers.the Chico
river in turn irrigates ricefields located along the course of the
river to name Sabangan, Bontoc, Sadanga, Tinglayan and Tabuk of Kalinga
all the way to the rice producing provinces of Isabela and Cagayan.
Other
households source their water from nearby springs coming from adjacent Datakan,
Ampakaw, and watersheds cradling the Boasaw waters where now is a source of an
unrealized P36 million government project bidded out December 2011 not
having reached households of the water- needy Poblacion yet. Time check,
it’s now April of 2013.
The
fate of these rivers and waters for domestic, commercial and agricultural use
hangs unanswered whether the installation of wind turbines shall affect water systems.
Shall
the 80 meter tall turbines with a five meter depth underground on a
20 x 20 meter footing concreted area disturb water systems of the
watershed?
Forester
Pogeyed says aquifers are located in different underground areas of the
watershed. He said there is a need for hydrology tests to determine critical
and non-critical areas of water points.
Bumasang
in an earlier interview said Philcarbon shall make sure wind farm structures
shall not hit water systems.
A
watershed being critical is by principle not supposed to be disturbed much as
it is critical. This is an elementary tenet of watershed protection.
The
Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) recognizes this and specially provide in
its guidelines on free prior and informed consent (FPIC) activities do not
include protected and critical areas such as watersheds.
Indigenous
peoples have their distinct cultural practices revolving on their
ways of life specially agricultural in nature, one important resource
of which is the watershed where sources water for their
irrigation and domestic use while believing that spirits of nature
and Kabunian keep water and forest life sustained for
community use.
Disturbing
a critical watershed is what a windfarm does in order to operate successfully.
Aside from tons of cement and other materials poured in a 400 square meter
foundation per turbine, cutting of trees is logically necessary to freely
accommodate whirring rotor blades 80 meters in diameter, and
building of an access road including downgrading some slopes to accommodate
infrastructure.
Besides,
hydraulic fluids necessary for turbine operations pose pollutant-threats to
existing water sources. Is this clean energy?
Sacrificing
the fate of a critical watershed and limited water sources for energy is a
dangerous and risky gamble forwarded by Poblacion residents here who does not
like the construction of the windfarm.
Four
megawatts of energy is all that Mountain Province need. The newly approved
Napua-Sabangan mini hydro dam is designed to produce 15 megawatts of
electricity three times the current peak demand of Mountain Province. Why the
need for a Sagada-Besao windfarm, ask signatories in a petition signed by
townspeople of Dagdag and Poblacion Sagada.
Tourist
guide Ben Calpi says Sagada is already accessing electricity from MOPRECO. What
is the extra energy for?
Philcarbon
chairman Engr Rufino Bumasang said energy generated from the windfarm is
designed to be sold and fed to the national electrical grid. And do
household consumers expect lessened electrical costs? As mentioned
by Philcarbon president Ruth Owen during the May consultation,
electricity rates shall not decrease. Generation costs definitely shall
increase energy costs.
Though
Mountain Province electric cooperative (MOPRECO) general manager Jude Domoguen
said feeding directly to MOPRECO lines can make electricity costs for consumers
cheaper. The community may negotiate with Philcarbon to effect this, he
said. And will the community negotiate for cheaper costs? And would Philcarbon
accede to lessened electric costs apart from negotiated share of
the community from carbon credits if ever, which in the first
place is a major reason why energy companies get into this
renewable energy business.
Renewable
energy in the name of clean energy is the name of the energy business today.
Thanks to environmentalists and the Kyoto protocol! With carbon credits
bought at some yearly carbon revenue of 15,000 to 20,000 European euro
per megawatt of installed wind energy, renewable energy is a real
enticing business.
Renewable
energy is not any different from business as usual.
Carbon
–emitting companies and nations shall continue to emit their carbon pollutants
and buy offsetting carbon credits mostly from developing countries
with vast untapped natural resources potential to be industrially transformed
to ‘clean energy’ .
Turbine
and wind farm equipment shall be purchased from Europe particularly Germany and
Denmark, shipping business shall contract transport wind mill equipment to the
Third world. Financing banks shall continue to reap in interest rates along
with other conditionalities.
It’s
another business for transporting vehicles to carry this heavy material all the
way from foreign lands to Philippine shores to the mountain or beach sites of
where the wind farm shall find reality, and it’s another contract for turbine
installation in the wind farm site itself. It’s another business if a company
shall broker the FPIC it has gained from a community to another financially
capable energy company. Or it may continue on financing and managing its energy
business initiatives.
And
to make renewable energy business sleek and smooth in the Philippines,
the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 provides for feed- in tariff with
standard rates shall be shouldered by the consumer public to ensure income for
the investing company, income tax holidays, duty free holidays, and
tax-free carbon credits plus income from power generation charges shall be
assured of renewable energy companies investing with the Philippine
government. It’s a holiday!
And
what else does national law provide? A mere 1% royalty for host barangays of
Sagada and Besao who shall share 40% share of Local government units from
the 1% royalty and the national government getting 60%.
And
meantime, what does the host community get in return if the windfarm finds
reality? Apart from a measly 1% royalty fee, and increased electricity rates,
the community shall finds trees wiped off from its watershed, its water systems
disturbed and springs threatened of whether or not water shall still gush
forth.
Otherwise,
some may still be thinking of negotiating for build-operate–transfer schemes.
How fair is fair? The question of pitting nature vs business cum development
gets tricky. The question of keeping traditional and sustained ways of
life get threatened over dazzling promises of money and infrastructure. How
much of money and infrastructure does the community need. Are you ready for the
change and the backlash of nature and disintegrated cultural and once
harmonious systems. Nature has a trade off and it’s a choice communities come
to intelligently decide.
Otherwise,
keep the watershed is blowing in the wind.