Dam holds but P5B seen for repairs, say execs

NORZAGARAY, Bulacan—While the 43-year-old Angat Dam remains sturdy, the government needs to spend about P5 billion to rehabilitate it, according to an official of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS).

Gerry Esquivel, MWSS administrator, said the feasibility study on the rehabilitation of the earth-filled Angat Dam is now 80-percent complete and would be finished this month. He addressed Bulacan officials, residents and dam managers at the Ipo Dam Watershed in a meeting here on Tuesday.

He said the bidding for the 18-month rehabilitation contract would be held before July.

The project, he said, entails construction of support structures to strengthen the dam and increase its water holding capacity.

The improvements may allow the reservoir to hold an additional 400 million milliliters of water per day (mld) or even a maximum of 600 million mld, which would raise the spilling level of the dam from 210 meters above sea level (asl) to 216 masl, said Esquivel.

“After the Japan [earthquake and] tsunami [last year], I kept asking [President Aquino] to please give priority [to the inspection and strengthening of] the Angat Dam. It went through a process of approval and here it is,” he said.

Bulacan officials raised concern about the dam’s safety, saying they wanted to be assured that it could withstand a strong earthquake and would not endanger some 14 million residents if the structure bursts.

The Angat Dam supplies 97 percent of Metro Manila’s potable water. It also fuels the Angat River Hydroelectric Power Plant and provides irrigation to 30,000 farmers in Bulacan and Pampanga.

The dam is in Barangay San Lorenzo here. Two smaller dams are located beneath the Angat reservoir: the Ipo and Bustos dams.

Since November last year, a feasibility study has been done to improve the dam’s flood-control capacity.