FLOODING may soon be a thing of the past in Asturias town after the Cebu Provincial Government and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) signed a memorandum of agreement for the cleanup of the Guinabasan-Sta. Lucia River, the town reported Thursday, December 9, 2021.
Four contractors have been commissioned to undertake the dredging of the river within an area one kilometer from the shore.
The goal is to clear the area of mud, rocks and other obstructions to widen the area where water could flow to the sea.
This is to avoid a repeat of the great flooding that occurred in the town in the same month last year that affected 156 families in at least three barangays amid heavy rains.
In line with this, the Office of the Governor has issued a special disposal permit good for two months that allows the dispatch of the waste materials to be collected from the dredging, the Municipality of Asturias said in a Facebook post.
The four contractors would pay P50 per cubic meter to the Province of Cebu representing their extraction fee and excise taxes.
Barangays Tubigagmanok and Barangay Sta. Lucia can expect to get a share of the extraction fees collected by the Provincial Capitol.
The municipality issued the statement to correct misconceptions that quarrying was taking place at the Guinabasan-Sta. Lucia River.
The town emphasized that it did not have a hand in the selection of the contractors.
One of the four contractors involved in the project, Balamban Construction and Marine Services Ltd. Co., explained that the purpose of the project is to “dredge the downstream of the bridge going to the shoreline and eventually to the sea” so that any rainwater that collects would quickly drain into the sea, instead of flowing back to the houses in low-lying areas near the river.
The contractor said it was following the design provided by the DPWH provincial engineering office, which has given the four contractors combined the task of extracting 40,000 cubic meters of dredge material at one meter depth near the bridge and two meters near the shoreline.
Last month, Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia announced that rivers in three Cebu towns in the third district would be desilted to prevent a repeat of the massive flooding that occurred in December 2020 when the rivers overflowed during heavy rains.
She said dredging would be done in the big rivers in Balamban, Asturias, and Tuburan.
The third district comprises Toledo City and the towns of Aloguinsan, Asturias, Balamban, Barili, Pinamungajan, and Tuburan located on the western seaboard of Cebu.