Water: Precious as gold

We take water for granted because we think we have so much of it.

True, we have a lot of fresh water we are just throwing out to the Pacific Ocean, reason enough to build that Kaliwa Dam so thirsty Metro Manila can use that precious resource. But we can’t seem to get the political will to do that. I imagine we are also wasting so much water in many other parts of our country due to the absence of proper water infrastructure.

Singapore, a country whose size is a lot smaller than Mega Manila, gets its water from Johor, Malaysia. The Malaysian government would sometimes threaten to cut off the water lifeline for political or economic reasons. The Singaporeans recognize this vulnerability and have treated water availability as a national security concern.

For a country that has no watersheds, Singapore has become the model of water management for Southeast Asia. Singapore also has the largest desalination plant in the region.

On the other hand, we in Metro Manila are almost totally reliant on Angat Dam that sits on top of an active earthquake fault line.

The Singaporeans tackled their water problem in a systematic and scientific way. The whole island of Singapore is a catchment for rainwater. That means the rainwater that drains from the streets and elsewhere ends up in a reservoir. Sewage or used water is recycled and treated into ultra-clean, high-grade reclaimed water, cushioning Singapore’s water supply against dry weather and moving Singapore towards water sustainability.

They call the recycled water NEWater, and NEWater is added into raw water reservoirs. The blended water undergoes further treatment in conventional waterworks to create drinking water. NEWater was introduced to the Singaporean public in 2003.

An international group of experts in engineering, biomedical sciences, chemistry, and water technology also found that NEWater’s quality was consistently safe and high, and well within the WHO and US EPA’s requirements for drinking water. Singapore is one place where you can drink the water from your hotel bathroom faucet.

The World Resources Institute, World Bank, and even the newly approved Philippine Sewage and Sanitation Master Plan completed in 2020 already identified NCR/Calabarzon and Central Luzon as areas with acute water crisis… and what are we doing about it? Absolutely nothing. That’s what we get for electing idiots.

As Angat also supplies the irrigation requirements of Bulacan, a drought situation will mean that our farmers in Bulacan (and parts of Pampanga) may be told not to plant for their second cropping season to ensure water for Metro Manila.  This will impact on the livelihood of those farmers, food security, and prices.

The only new water infrastructure for Metro Manila is Ricky Razon’s Wawa dam. The first phase of 80 million liters per day can start operations either this month or next.  Balance in 2025. But that’s just the weir or water collection. We still need a treatment plant and about  five kilometers of conveyance pipes.

Water availability is also a critical consideration for attracting potential foreign investors. Water is an element in semiconductor manufacturing. Water is critical to steel plants since steel-making equipment all needs to be water-cooled. While steel plants do not need super clean water, lack of water can stop the operations of steel mills.

Weirdly enough, the Manila Observatory actually projected that Region 3 and NCR may receive higher than average rainfall over the next 25 years. But without the proper infrastructure to store and manage this water, water availability will continue to be a concern. Our water problem is not because of scarcity, but bad government management.

El Niño will just make bad water management more severely felt by us.

But there is good news. Raoul Romulo, a not-so-distant cousin on my mother’s side from Camiling, Tarlac, wrote to let me know that as far as the Manila Golf Club is concerned, the greens are watered by a system of reclaimed water, including from a creek that carries the runoff from BGC.

“I was intimately involved in the renovation and improvement of the water conservation/recovery system of the course in 2005 to 2015. In late 1998 to early 2000, we experienced a similar heatwave and water problem in the metropolis, and the authorities then began clamping down on water usage and golf courses were an obvious target…”

Raoul said they renovated the course and “increased the size of their aquifer capacity in four areas namely, lake/hole 14 - 10 million gallons, hole/lake 13 – two million gallons, hole/lake 16 – three million gallons, and utilized the old water tank on old hole 3 – two million gallons. This was precisely to store and reuse our water.

“The National Water Resources Board (NWRB) closed all the deep wells on the property so we had to find ways to store and more importantly reuse our water. We also built a wastewater treatment plant next to hole/lake 14, as it also was connected to the runoff area of BGC’s canals. We also had an irrigation system installed that is computer driven to know exactly which areas of the course need more water so we do not waste water by just watering at random.

“In fact, Manila Golf was cited by no less than the NWRB for having a wastewater treatment facility to irrigate the golf course in 2008 and asked other golf courses to follow the design of our waste water treatment.

“All fairways and greens are self-reliant. We are only allowed to use water that went back into the ponds/lakes from rain and actual sprinkler use, as well as runoffs from BGC that were treated (grey water) and excess from the clubhouse kitchen and bath water drains.

“The only water we get from the concessionaire is for bathing and cooking for the clubhouse kitchen. And that’s subsequently recycled.”

I am told Wack Wack and Ayala Alabang have similar water systems. Maybe the MWSS official was thinking of the smaller golf courses, notably those with the military that must adjust their water use to this looming crisis.

Imagine this heat and not a drop to drink… or take a nice cool bath with. Water is now as precious as gold.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco