Luzon Hydro bridges area for dev’t in 12 years

It was in 2004 when the legendary Amburayan River two shores in Sudipen, La Union and Alilem, Ilocos Sur was finally linked by a dry crossing, the Friendship Bridge.

Since its inauguration 12 years ago, the Friendship Bridge has offered safe and comfortable transportation to the residents of Alilem. More importantly, the bridge became a significant structure uplifting livelihood activities in the area.

“Gone were the days when the people of Alilem have to use bangkas to transport their goods and get soaked in the raging waters of the mighty Amburayan River,” says  Mar Ruel  Sumabat.

Today, the bridge is bringing major social and economic benefits to the people of Ilocos Sur and Benguet provinces. With agriculture as main source of income, root crops, rice, fruits, corn and tobacco are some of their major produce.

Luzon Hydro started its construction of the bridge in January 2003. Fourteen months later, with about 120 workers involved and a total cost of 60 million pesos, the dream bridge stands in service to the people.

The bridge rises 15 meters from the Amburayan River. With a length of 292 meters and width of 5 meters, the bridge connects Barangay Namaltugan of Sudipen and Barangay Dalawa of Alilem.

DENR awards Luzon Hydro

To Luzon Hydro, sustainability is no longer a buzzword. 

                Sustainability is Luzon Hydro’s responsible stewardship on the resources it optimizes to operate. For Luzon Hydro, sustainability means constantly innovating to bring development to the remotest areas with up-to-date environment-friendly technology. The pivotal role of Luzon Hydro in the community is to provide reliable, reasonable, and responsible power that improve the lives of the locals, while respecting the environment where it operates. 

                Luzon Hydro is on its ongoing commitment to environmental responsibility. It takes pride on its strides through the years to increase the efficiency in conserving resources. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) lauded the best practices of Hedcor in managing the upper and lower Amburayan rivers. 

Every tree we plant counts

Luzon Hydro’s vow is to preserve the watershed through its notable environmental initiative program: reforestation. With a workforce composed of Luzon Hydro, the local government units and the local community, contributing to the efforts, tree planting has been strengthened boosting more than 2.8 million trees planted. 

Fruit bearing trees are usually planted because they will not only serve to sequester carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but they will also be sources of food and possibly livelihood for the locals. All the trees planted will serve as water aquifers or part of soil stabilization measures. 

Stabilizing Amburayan banks

Exploitation of river resources had led to significant degradation of freshwater biodiversity together with the  services rivers provide. Because of this, Luzon Hydro is driven for a more direct and active collaboration among the communities along esteros or creeks and rivers to achieve a cleaner, safer and healthier rivers. Luzon Hydro optimizes the might of the river on its power generation, and it is just right to conditioned the river on its natural and abundant state.