MAJORITY of water sources in the municipality of Alegria, southwest of Cebu lack automatic chlorinators.
Dr. Samson Dela Pena, municipal health officer of Alegria, said the municipality which recorded 142 cases of typhoid fever from Brgy Maridejos and Valencia last week only has two automatic chlorinators installed in their nine barangays.
Pena said the Capitol donated 10 chlorinators to Alegria town last May but only two were installed because of misunderstandings with the owners of the land where the spring boxes were located.
Spring boxes are boxes mostly made of cement where the water from the spring passes and will be filtered manually or through the automatic chlorinator before it will be distributed to residents for use.
“We will make sure that all the chlorinators will be installed within the year,” he said.
He said that each barangay had two spring boxes, where they continued to do manual chlorination on the water system at least once a month.
Two automatic chlorinators were installed in barangay Sta. Filomena and Inghoy.
Pena said that some land owners would not allow them to install an automatic chlorinator for fear that the chlorine content on the treated water would affect their farms.
“They don’t understand that this is also for their own good,” he said. /Reporter Candeze R. Mongaya