Doubts cast on Kaliwa dam 2022 completion target date
Posted on June 15, 2017
http://www.bworldonline.com/
THE government’s deadline for completing the P18.72-billion Kaliwa dam, set for the end of the President’s term in 2022, will be tough to meet given the project’s scope, but Metro Manila will have alternative water sources even beyond 2022, some industry participants said.
He made the comment in an interview on the sidelines of a press conference during the “Water Challenge Forum” on Wednesday at Marriott Hotel Manila in Pasay City.
“Partially, probably,” he said, when asked further if part of the project could be running by the next five years.
Mr. Taus said he has been in the Philippines long enough to know about the various water projects that the government initiated.
Kaliwa dam is a holdover from the past administration although the country’s new leaders are looking at implementing the project via official development assistance from China. It was formerly to be implemented via a public-private partnership.
Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) earlier said a P10-billion loan had been offered by China for the project that seeks to build a new dam in Quezon province. The dam is intended to produce 600 million liters per day (MLD) to add to the 4,000 MLD being delivered by Angat dam to Metro Manila’s two privately-owned water concessionaires.
MWSS Administrator Reynaldo V. Velasco said on Tuesday he was hopeful that the dam would be completed before the end of the government’s term.
Around the middle of 2016, the ECCP said that the country needed to avert a looming water crisis, and had called on the government to conduct a quick multisectoral dialogue to address the problem.
Asked about his assessment of the current situation, Mr. Taus said nothing much has happened since then.
He also said Kaliwa dam will not be enough given that water demand has been growing too fast that planning should look 10 to 30 years into the future.
“It’s a massive undertaking,” Mr. Taus said, adding that the administration only has five years to implement the project.
He said it would take political will, the right finances and people to complete the project within the government’s timeline.
Separately, Randolph T. Estrellado, Maynilad chief operating officer, said the company had factored in a completion date for Kaliwa dam of 2026, and had started initiatives to find water from other sources.
“Based on our business plan, the Kaliwa dam has to be available for water by 2026,” he said.
Ahead of that date, he said Maynilad continues to look for new sources of water, the latest of which is a second 150 MLD treatment plant in Laguna de Bay. He said the plant would answer the needs of the water concessionaire’s customers in the south.
“Even if we are able to save water from the north, we cannot bring that water to the south,” he said, adding that doing so would cost up to P20 billion.
He also said Maynilad was also exploring new water treatment processes after realizing that the Laguna Lake project had been a challenge for the company.
