San Roque dam to open spilllway gate as Benguet dams spill water

DAGUPAN CITY — The San Roque Dam in the Pangasinan town of San Manuel town will open one of its spillway gates at 11 a.m. Tuesday in anticipation of the heavy rains that Typhoon “Rosita” may dump on the Agno River basin, an official of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) said.

“Dam discharge will not cause flooding in the flood warning zone along the Agno River,” said Odette Rivero, Napocor spokesperson, once a spillway gate is raised by half a meter.

San Roque Dam catches water released by Ambuklao and Binga in Benguet province.

At 6 a.m. Tuesday, the San Roque Dam had a water elevation of 276.62 meters above sea level (masl), which is 2.68 m below its normal high water level of 280 masl. The dam can accommodate water up to 290 masl.

As of 6 a.m. Tuesday, Ambuklao had a water level of 747.61 masl, which is 4.39 m below its spilling level of 752 masl.

But it had its seven gates — each raised by half a meter — to discharge water at the rate of 392.12 cubic meters per second (cms). A cubic meter of water is about five drums of water.

Water released by Ambuklao goes to Binga, which, as of 6 a.m., had a water elevation of 569.78 masl. The dam’s spilling level is 575 masl.

Binga had all of its six gates open with a total height of 4.5 m to release water at the rate of 546.8 cms.