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Wednesday, September 20, 2006
S. Cotabato waterbed drying up: report
THE rapid industrialization and the mushrooming of agricultural plantations in South Cotabato and neighboring areas are reportedly starting to dry up the area's water resources, an official of a local government-led environmental agency warned.
Abdula Bansuan, executive director of the Allah Valley Landscape Development Alliance, said their monitoring showed that the capacity of groundwater sources in some parts of the province have been slowly declining due to the continuous extraction of huge volumes of groundwater for various industries and plantations.
"We are not yet in a crisis situation but we might end up seeing the downstream areas practically waterless in the future if the water usage of upstream industries would not be properly managed," he said.
Bansuan cited the case of Surallah town, which hosts large plantation areas of asparagus, banana, and pineapple under a growership program of fruit giant Dole Philippines.
The company recently acquired a fruit canning plant of the cash-strapped T'boli Agro-Industrial Development Inc. in the area.
He said the use of large pipes in pumping water for the plantations was seen as one of the reasons that caused the groundwater in some parts of the town to dry up.
"Try putting up a water pump near these plantations and you would get nothing until you use up four to five (20-foot) pipes," Bansuan said.
Before the plantations came, he said, local residents only need one to two pipes to extract groundwater.
Bansuan said their monitoring also showed that the water level of irrigation facilities in the area has also gone down although it has not yet reached the critical level.
He said their agency has launched a series of dialogues with concerned companies, national government agencies, non-government organizations, and local government officials in the area to immediately address the problem.
"There is a conscious effort among the area's stakeholders to discuss and address the problems now," he said.
Bansuan said they are now trying to develop a system that would effectively manage the water resources and at the same time address related problems such as flooding and the deterioration of water quality in the area.
He said the 11 local government units comprising the alliance have already committed to pool their resources for the initiative.
Allah Valley Landscape Development Alliance is a special body composed of concerned public and private entities in eight municipalities and lone city that are covered by the Allah Valley landscape within the provinces of South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat.
The alliance, formed in 2003, covers the municipalities of T'boli, Lake Sebu, Surallah and Sto. Niño in South Cotabato and Bagumbayan, Isulan, Esperanza, Lambayong and Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat. (Allen V. Estabillo)
For Bisaya stories from General Santos.Click here. (This section is updated every Monday)
(September 18, 2006 issue)
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