Laguna Lake choking from silt, fish pens—official

MARICAR P. CINCO/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Laguna Lake has been choking from the deposited silt over the past three decades, Laguna Lake Development Authority general manager Neric Acosta said.

During the Flood Summit at the House of Representatives on Thursday, Acosta said the average depth of the lake used to be 10 meters in the 1980s.

The average depth now is just 2.5 to 3 meters, Acosta said.

The population residing in the 65 hectares between Metro Manila and the Laguna de Bay had also ballooned to 50 million, from just six million in the 1980s, Acosta said.

He noted the proliferation of fish pens as the cause behind the siltation of the lake.

Fish pens in the lake have occupied almost a quarter of the 100,000 hectare lake, the official said.

Because of the clogging in the lake, it is no longer a viable catch basin of floodwater from Metro Manila, Acosta explained.

“If fish pens [were] cholesterol, it [would cause] the lake a heart attack,” Acosta said.

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