CAGAYAN de Oro has a plague of recurring flood, garbage, water, power and traffic crisis. Do we have proposed solutions and plan of actions? The problems cited are complex but they need integrated solutions.

On January 29, 2011 at 8:20 a.m. (New York), I wrote and warned about an impending major flood in Cagayan de Oro before Sendong of Dec, 2011. Sendong 1 struck the city into a major disaster area with a pile of dead bodies which shocked the world where our family, community and city were the victims of my own warning. The circumstances in Jan 2011 were at crisis levels but today is far worse.

What makes us think that Sendong 2 will never happen? The signs are recurring day in and day out, month by month, year after year, while the ingredients for disaster are all in.

Then I urged but fall into deaf ears- “reforest, stop the logging and mining and go upland or go flooded- a message to Cagayan de Oro and to the whole nation.”

I read the scientific geological assessment report by journalist Mike Banos which came from the studies and conclusions of UP geologists.

Lately too, Mr. Oscar Salcedo showed aerial and actual photographs of the state of the Iponan River and how it has swallowed big land areas along the river banks which I suppose signals impending floods as the water levels of the rivers could overflow from low land areas of the city and as the water levels of the seas also rises. I have written extensively on the matter. It is time to listen to how the experts confirm my fears repeatedly raised ten years ago. As early as 1998, I already saw how the same flow of the water in Iponan River suddenly changed its course horizontally from one area to the other.

This and other policy recommendations were presented by the four person team which included Prof. Fernando Siringan (now with the U.P. Marine Science Institute), Prof. Alfredo Mahar Lagmay, Prof. Emeritus Kelvin Rodolfo (also with the University of Ilinois) and Riovie Ramos, associate researcher from the U.P. MSI

“Cagayan de Oro should encourage movement to higher grounds, not necessarily uplands. Development of uplands should be carefully planned as the uplands play a major role in groundwater recharge. Forest cover should be improved and waste water should be properly handled. Otherwise, we contaminate our groundwater. Landslide prone areas should be avoided and development should not induce their occurrence,” Siringan said.

Aerial photo by Prof. Fernando Siringan shows the alluvial plain built by accretion of sediments on which the central business district of Cagayan de Oro now lies.

The team conducted an aerial survey and rapid assessment of the city earlier last week and compared their findings with previous research conducted by Siringan under the auspices of the defunct Cagayan de Oro River Development Authority (Corda) headed by former Mayor Constantino G. Jaraula when he was still a city councilor.

CDO is in a delta plain. It is practically a bowl of a valley under mountains of denuded forests from Bukidnon and Lanao and the city itself.

On top of these, Siringan said key infrastructure like the recently completed rotunda of the Kagay-an bridge are located in former wetlands or recently abandoned river channels, making them naturally susceptible to floods.

Constricted and shallow portions of the Cagayan River Channel (the dark spots along the river channel near the Maharlika and Ysalina/Carmen bridges) slow down the flow of flood waters exacerbating floods and sedimentation.

“Floodwaters reached a high water mark of 5.5 meters above the river level at this point,” Lagmay noted in his presentation entitled “Aerial Photography, Digital Photogrammetry and Flood Simulations.”

Because of its location, the city is influenced by tides, storm surges and tsunamis, making floods a part of its natural cycle. With the city’s rapid urbanization, floods have become a constant threat.

However, while the team recommends moving further development to the upland barangays which are relatively free of the flood threat, Lagmay said this should not compromise the city’s remaining forest cover since reforestation will play a key role in mitigating further calamities like last month’s floods.