Water firm on with P1.2B pipe project

By Dexter A. See

BAGUIO CITY – The Baguio Water District (BWD) is embarking on a P1.2 billion 3-phased repiping project to effectively and efficiently deliver water to its over 34,000 consumers and lessen its system loss to the acceptable standard of 20 percent.

Engineer Salvador Royeca, BWD assistant general manager, said two phases of their project amounting to P8 million are about to completed by the middle of this year while the remaining third phase with a project cost of P350 million is programmed to be completed next year.

“Our old piping system is already four decades old, thus, the need to replace it with new ones in order to improve the delivery of water supply to the consumers and more importantly lessen our 38 percent systems loss,” Royeca stressed, noting that the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) came out with a ruling that the acceptable system loss in the industry is 20 percent.

According to him, the current water demand of the city is about 60,000 cubic meters daily but BWD’s production from its over 60 sources, including 4 open sources, is around 55,000 cubic meters daily.

Royeca explained based on their studies, the city’s water demand will reach 75,000 cubic meters daily, thus, the need for the water firm to continue developing new water sources, including the ambitious multi-billion bulk water project, in order to reduce the gap between the supply and the demand.

“Before the implementation of our repiping project, our systems loss was more than 47 percent and with 72 percent of the project completed for the initial two phases, our systems loss is now down to 38 percent,” Royeca told the Manila Standard, citing that the firm could further lessen the huge systems loss once the whole repiping project will be completed.

He assured local residents and visitors BWD can provide the water required even during peak seasons where there is an influx of people in the Summer Capital to spend a break.

Royeca said part of the funds for the water repiping project came from the over P700 million loan of the water district from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), another P100 million from the equity of the district while the remaining P350 million will come from a loan from the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).

Aside from pursuing its water repiping project, the BWD official cited environmental groups and stakeholders are joining forces to preserve and protect the watersheds in the different parts of the city to ensure that the city’s water sources will not be invaded by squatters and that there will be continuing efforts to plant trees to reforest denuded watersheds.