Davao City Water District spokesperson Atty. Bernardo De Lima announces during Monday’s Kapehan sa Dabaw that DCWD will provide two mobile generator sets to address the problem of water interruption in some areas in Davao City whenever there is a power outage. (Maria Patricia C. Borromeo/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY — The good news: Davao City Water District (DSWD) will buy two mobile generator sets to provide electricity to the production wells and booster pumps affected by the rotating brown-outs.
The bad news: it will be available by the end of the year to wait for the bidding process and the switching and construction of the civil works.
Attorney Bernardo De Lima, DCWD spokesperson also said they are only able to purchase two mobile gen-sets worth P6-million pesos each plus its switching mechanism which costs P200,000 each.
They are only buying two mobile gen-set since to purchase for all 60 production wells, 3-megawatt booster pumps and additional areas, they would need P500 million.
With the P10 billion bulk water project of DCWD in Tamugan river by 2019, the gen-sets would be superfluous.
“If we will buy more than two gen-sets, what will we do it? These will just be useless and we will add cost for the maintenance,” he said.
He added that the mobile gen-set will be “more effective in small water systems” so DCWD decided to focus on those areas outside of Dumoy water system.
“Since its mobile gen-set and not stationary, it will be more useful in small water system such as in Panacan to Lasang area, Cabantian, Tugbok and Toril districts,” De Lima explained.
“DCWD have small production wells, so we need to buy the adjacent property to accommodate the gen-set,” De Lima said.
Water interruption
De Lima said that if there is a prolonged brown-out then there is also prolonged water interruptions, especially in far-flung areas.
He said the areas generated by Dumoy water system, like Sasa area, usually have long water interruption due to the power shortage.
“The reason for the long water interruption in the area is because of the re-switching, build-up pressure and line recovery that might take up to 24 hours,” De Lima explained.
He said that mobile gen-set will be helpful in these areas since it is portable and usable only during brownouts.
“The mobile gen-set can just stand-by near the brown-out area, and when the power comes back then the mobile gen-set will be brought back to the DCWD,” De Lima said.(davaotoday.com)
