EDITORIAL — No practical way

"So for now the best thing we can do is tough it out."

There’s good news and bad news regarding our current water shortage.

The good news is that three waterfalls in the upland barangays of Cebu City were found to be ideal to source water and address our water shortage, seen to worsen with a strong El Niño later this year.

The bad news is that the Rapid Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis/Resource and Environmental Assessment Unit found out that they were too unsafe or too out of the way to make drawing water from them practical.

According to a report in this newspaper, both the Kabang Falls in Barangay Budlaan and the Manggasang Falls in Barangay Tagbao have rough, steep terrain and many drop-offs. They are both also a kilometer away from an access road.

Meanwhile, the Linut-od Falls in Barangay Taptap, although having safer and more stable terrain compared to the other two waterfalls, is more than two kilometers from an access road.

So, no. Tapping them for water to provide relief to thirsty and dry parts of the city anytime soon isn’t a possibility. Which is a shame, because we really need that water. As it stands right now, the Metropolitan Cebu Water District said it’s coming short of 16,000 cubic meters of water daily.

Others will insist that if there’s a will, there’s a way. They might even point out that engineers of the ancient Roman Empire brought water to their cities from hundreds of kilometers away, through all kinds of terrain, via the aqueducts, using what materials they had then and knowledge that can be considered antiquated today. But let’s be realistic here.

We are sure that more advanced countries with access to better engineering techniques, state-of-the-art equipment, and not to mention money to burn, can find workarounds to those issues. But we aren’t in this situation yet. Someday, perhaps, but not today.

So for now the best thing we can do is tough it out. That means not using too much water than we should and saving water wherever and whenever we can, especially the water that falls from the sky.