Hesitant Sagada and Besao folks still wary on wind farm

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.