[wpgmappity id=”1476″]
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Philippines—Residents have resisted a government plan to revive the western channel of the Pasig-Potrero River, even as a study showed this could greatly help ease floods in southwestern Pampanga province, an official said.
The project would desilt the western channel of lahar. Once that waterway is cleared, a series of infrastructure projects would train the water flow toward the revived channel.
But people who attended community consultations in Guagua and Sta. Rita towns did not want the agency to divert the water that flows to a creek in Gugu in Bacolor town, west of this Pampanga capital, said Isabelita Manalo, Department of Public Works and Highways assistant project director of the agency’s Unified Project Management Office-Flood Control Management Cluster.
“They perceived it to be a danger when it’s not. In fact, it is going to reduce their risk to severe flooding when we could drain out the water fast,” Manalo said after she presented the agency’s flood-control measures at the June 5 summit of the Pampanga Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council at the Clark Freeport.
Local officials, she said, could save lives and properties by helping draw support for the P515-million project scheduled to be finished in the mid-2015.
Several farmers believe that the project would improve their access to irrigation.
Flooding in the five towns along the Pasig-Potrero River western channel—Sta. Rita, Guagua, Bacolor, Minalin and Sasmuan—affects at least 252,724 people, based on the 2010 census of the National Statistics Office.
The river originates from Mt. Pinatubo on the side of Porac, also in Pampanga.
Manalo said the DPWH had to intervene because lahar (volcanic sediments washed down by rains from the slopes of Mt. Pinatubo from 1991 to 1997) had filled the Pasig-Potrero River western channel, rising as high as 6 meters.
The water flows instead to the eastern channel through the Gugu Creek, settling inside the oversilted San Fernando-Sto. Tomas-Minalin Tail Dike before heading to a circuitous route to the Pampanga Bay via Guagua and Sasmuan and finally to Manila Bay.
Monsoon rains in 2011, 2012 and 2013 had breached several sections of the tail dike, endangering also the North Luzon Expressway section in the City of San Fernando. Repairs continue since work began last year.
To revive the western channel, Manalo said the DPWH began constructing Spillways No. 1 and 3 at the damaged transverse dike of the lahar-capturing FVR Megadike in Sta. Barbara in Bacolor.
Building Spillways No. 1 and 3 costs P258.8 million and P270.8 million, respectively, a DPWH report showed.
Downstream, waterways have been cleared ahead of the rainy season.
The desilting activities in the Dalan Pari-Malauli River in Minalin and in the Sapang Labuan in Guagua have been completed at cost of P44.9 million and P26.9 million, respectively.
Flood mitigation projects are ongoing such as the channel excavation of the Camachiles River in Bacolor and Minalin (P36.9 million), repair of eroded dikes and banks of the Pampanga in Calumpit in Bulacan and Apalit, Macabebe and Masantol in Pampanga (P37.4 million), restoration of portions of the San Fernando River (P18.7 million), repair of eroded section of the Gumain-Porac River in Lubao (P33.6 million), asphalting of the left and right dikes of the same river (P46.2 million), and west FVR Megadike repair and asphalting in Bacolor (P44.8 million).
Also being repaired is the Maskup Dam in Mabalacat, Pampanga (P28.1 million).
In Bamban, Tarlac province, rehabilitation works are ongoing at the Sacobia River Dike in Sapang Cauayan (P46.2 million) and at the left and right dikes downstream of Nielsen steel bridge (P45.6 million).
In the pipeline are projects for the repair of the FVR Megadike west side in Guagua, Sta. Rita and Porac (P45.1 million), and the construction and maintenance of floodways and drainage in western Zambales province (P46.3 million each for Phases 1 and 2).