P8-B dam project in Pangasinan opposed

DAGUPAN CITY—Displayed in front of the town hall in Mabini, Pangasinan, is a streamer expressing the town’s opposition to a proposed P8-billion government dam project at the Balincaguing River.

Local officials and residents of Mabini in western Pangasinan say they do not want the dam built because the project area in Barangay De Guzman is landslide-prone and for fear that it would aggravate flooding there.

A position paper signed by local officials, church leaders and residents said a geohazard map released by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau confirmed that the dam’s proposed site is prone to erosion and the area traversed by the Balincaguing River and its tributaries has experienced flooding.

According to a project brief from the NIA, the dam is a component of the Mabini Agricultural Development Project (ADP) under the irrigation development program of the agency. The Mabini ADP is programmed for implementation from 2019 to 2025, but the NIA wants to implement it earlier because of the national government’s thrust to have zero rice importation by 2016.

The position paper said the Mabini ADP included the Alaminos Bani Mabini Sual Irrigation Project (Alabamas), which was proposed in the early 1980s, but which the residents opposed.

The residents raise the danger of flooding, should the dam collapses, to Mabini and the towns of Burgos and Agno, which are not beneficiaries of the project.

The project is expected to irrigate about 11,500 hectares of farm lands in Alaminos City (4,900 ha), Bani (3,000 ha), Sual (3,000 ha) and Mabini (600 ha). These lands are mostly rainfed and served by communal irrigation systems.

It could also generate about 26 million kilowatt (.026 megawatt) of power yearly from the reservoir dam, according to the NIA paper.

Former Mabini Councilor Adelito Banting Sr. said the project will benefit mostly the adjoining towns.

“If you will look at the service area, Mabini, which is the source of water, has the least [number of hectares of land] to be irrigated. Our town will only get 2 percent, while the danger that the dam poses to Mabini is 98 percent,” Banting told the Inquirer by telephone.

But in a letter to the Alaminos City government, one of project’s beneficiaries, Helry Bermudez, Pangasinan irrigation management officer, said flooding could be addressed by increasing the storage capacity of the reservoir and through the coordination among NIA, other government agencies and concerned local governments.

Mabini officials and residents say that instead of building the dam, the government should dredge and rehabilitate the Balincaguing River, including the reforestation of its watershed, to restore its original depth and carrying capacity.

Once the headwaters of the Balincaguing River are dammed, the lower tributaries would dry up, affecting biodiversity there, they say.

The 60-km Balincaguing River catches water from the rivers in Infanta, Dasol, Sual, Labrador and Mabini towns. It runs through Burgos and Agno towns and empties into the West Philippine Sea.