Baguio City addresses its water crisis, too

BAGUIO CITY — It is a race against time for residents of this mountain city, the country’s vacation capital, to be able to solve their water crisis.

Consider the statistics: the city population — now estimated at more than 300,000 — continues to swell at 2.31 percent annually, but the demand for water seems to increase by 2.9 percent a year.

Antonio Espiritu, chairman of the Baguio Water District (BWD) board, admits that one-third of city residents do not have potable water, most of them relying on water supplied by private distributors.

In a summit last week, city officials and representatives of citizens’ groups tackled the looming lack of potable water, hoping for the enactment of a local water code, which could be the first in the country.

To address the problem, the city government itself is coming up with a medium-term water operational plan this month with the support of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives-Local Government for Sustainability (ICLEI).

The ICLEI, an association of cities, towns, counties, metropolitan governments and local government associations, chose Baguio City last year as a pilot demonstration area for water governance in Southeast Asia.

The project is designed to strengthen the city government’s efforts in integrating its efforts in managing water resources and operations.

Last January, multisectoral groups, following a series of discussions, came up with an eight-point water agenda that included ensuring sustainable access to safe water for the remaining 25 percent of the city’s population, reducing non-revenue water from 38-45 percent to 20-30 percent, and increasing forest cover in all watersheds by at least 20 percent.

With the current water crisis, Espiritu said the BWD is keen on pushing through with the multimillion-peso Australian bulk water project, which would deliver at least 50,000 cubic meters of water daily enough for every household.

Earlier, consumer groups had appealed to the BWD board of directors not to reconsider its earlier rejection of the bulk water supply project because of some legal requirements that Benguet Corp. has to secure from appropriate government bodies, among other issues.

The project would involve collecting water from rivers and streams in Itogon, Benguet and the impounding of surface water in an abandoned open pit.

The consumer groups also questioned the potability of the water to be supplied to the BWD and whether contaminated water can be purified economically and on a large scale.

Espiritu, however, insisted that the BWD would not buy water from Benguet Corp. if it would be toxic.

"We will not buy and we will penalize them," he said.

According to Espiritu, the bulk water supply project would ensure 24-hour potable water, dismissing claims by critics that the city should instead install more deep wells.

"Deep wells cannot sustain (the supply)," he said, citing the requirement of the city’s growing population.

"Our aquifers cannot be replenished now because most of the rain water goes direct to the rivers downstream and not to the aquifers anymore," he said.