Quezon City- The Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) has moved to revive the long-shelved Bulacan Bulk Water Supply Project to ease the pressure on the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) and the Maynilad Water Company which had to allocate part of the Angat Dam water production with four Bulacan water districts to supply the needs of their own concessionaires.

LWUA Board Chairman Prospero A. Pichay, Jr. announced this in his speech before officers and members of the Philippine Association of Water Districts (PAWD) in the opening of their three-day national annual convention at the Crown Plaza Royale Hotel at Ortigas Center, Quezon City, with the theme"Water Districts: Facing the Challenge of Reducing Non-Revenue Water."

Pichay said he has instructed the LWUA management, particularly its engineering service, to fast-track the implementation of the decades-old Bulacan Bulk Water Supply Project for which the agency had already drilled a number of infiltration wells along the Angat River in Bustos, Bulacan. He said that developing those wells and putting them into operation can generate at least 80,000 cubic meters of water per day which is enough to cover the daily allocation needed by the four water districts from the MWSS.

This means that an additional 80,000 cubic meters of water per day can be made available to water consumers of Metro Manila, Pichay said.

But the former legislator was also quick to point out that the Maynilad also have to reduce its still high non-revenue water which he said is more than 50 percent, and the Metro residents to conserve in their use of water to avoid water supply problems during summer which is even aggravated by the dry spell caused by the EI Niño phenomenon.

The Bulacan water districts currently drawing water allocations from the MWSS and Maynilad are those of San Jose del Monte City, Obando, Meycauayan and Marilao whose respective groundwater sources have either been infiltrated by saltwater or are not enough to supply the needs of their concessionaires.

The Bulacan Bulk Project was thought of way back in the late 80s to provide a central bulk water source for water districts in Bulacan, particularly those operating in coastal and mountainous areas where sourcing water from the underground was a problem. As part of the project, LWUA drilled eighteen infiltration wells along the Angat River in the town of Bustos to serve as the main water source for the project. Water from these wells would be diverted to centralized reservoirs and transmitted through a network of pipelines to the availing water districts.

But the project fell through when a private-led consortium that would finance and implement the same backed out in the 90s and LWUA was forced to shelve the project since its cost had increased with the onset of the then Asian economic crisis and LWUA could not finance the project on its own at that time.

February 18 , 2010