DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Despite the continuing onslaught of the El Niño phenomenon in the country, including here in Mindanao, the Davao City Water District (DCWD) has assured residents of Davao City of ‘No water shortage’ as they have enough supply of groundwater.
Water crisis recently hit most parts of Metro Manila as levels of sources of water dropped due to the long dry spell.
DCWD Deputy Spokesperson Jovana Duhaylungsod on Monday’s press conference clarified that the reported water interruptions recently experienced by consumers were due to service improvements works, scheduled power interruptions, and preventive maintenance works and tapping of realigned pipes.
Interruptions, she added, is also due to the repair of damaged pipelines, emergency power interruption, and breakdown of facilities.
“What’s certain is that DCWD commits to restoring water service the soonest possible time,” Duhaylungsod added.
Currently, DCWD has 224,000 service connections where 9 percent continue to experience low water pressure to no water but clarified that ‘it has nothing to do with water shortage’.
“This is because there is a huge demand for water on peak hours. However, this is not due to water supply shortage but because of high elevation and the distance of these connections from DCWD’s production facilities,” Duhaylungsod said.
The DCWD Board of Directors, in a separate statement, said that they have ‘initiative’ to strengthen its capacity ‘to ensure water supply security’ that would efficiently manage water service in the city.
This initiative includes ‘immediate and long-term strategies’ to increase production capacity, replenishment of the major water recharge zones of DCWD’s water sources, reduction of water loss, and efficient management of water demand.
One of its long-term initiatives is the development of new water sources and facilities as well as improving the pipeline networks that once completed will produce an additional 17,480 cubic meters per day this year, 33,000 cubic meters per day in 2020 and 55,000 cubic meters per day in 2021.
Among the identified facility that is being developed is the Davao City Bulk Water Project, a PHP12.6-billion project under Apo Agua Infrastructura Inc. which is a joint venture between Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. and J.V. Angeles Construction Corp.
The DCWD board said the new facility would address the future demand of water and can provide 300,000 cubic meters of water per day. (davaotoday.com)
