IT’S a sorry sight at the Jaclupan Dam. Our photojournalist catches images of fishes and clams in their brittle state at the filtration and sedimentation basins of the facility.
The Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD) says the dam, under good weather, generates 33,000 cubic meters of water per day. As of Tuesday, April 23, production was down to 9,000 cubic meters per day. The El Niño sucked up a good volume supposedly hydrating households in Talisay City and Cebu City.
“So if we have one cubic meter per day demand per household, we can only serve 9,000 households at present out of the 33,000 households,” MCWD spokesperson Charmaine Rodriguez-Kara said.
The illustration is nothing short of dismal. With the dry spell still peaking, with May bracing for its hottest cast, you can imagine our cities’ water supply trickling to a halt.
Unless the MCWD acts fast. As of now, Kara said, those who had water supply for three to five hours before may now get one or two hours. Hit the most by this setup will be the interior portions of Talisay City and a good number of barangays in Cebu City.
Jaclupan Dam was supposed to supply water all the way to the end of May, but Monday, Aprill 22, there were only the dead fishes and the clams at the facility’s infiltration basin.
The MCWD gets 70 percent of its water from ground water, 26 percent from surface water and 3 percent from desalination plants.
As of now, the water firm is bracing for a number of options, projecting a generation of 86,000 cubic meters with the proposed Mananga Dam project. It has an ongoing bulk water supply joint venture with Danao City, drilling at the same time additional wells. There is, on the other hand, a desalination option in Mactan, treating seawater for potability.
These projects, however, are still in the long haul, welcome initiatives for a burgeoning metro.
Meantime, there is a looming, if not an ongoing crisis, in our midst. It’s high time to outsource ideas, with some government entity taking the lead. Stakeholders must come together to discuss solutions.