Angat Dam spill alarms Bulacan towns

CITY OF MALOLOS—Angat Dam in Bulacan province continued releasing excess water from its reservoir on Monday, alarming towns already reeling from a week of floods in Central Luzon.

Gladys Sta. Rita, president of National Power Corp. (Napocor), said runoff water from the Sierra Madre mountain range was still flowing toward the Angat reservoir, compelling dam operators to continue discharging water to keep the facility stable.

Napocor opened the dam’s floodgates at 5 p.m. on Saturday, but water levels still rose from 215.71 meters above sea level (masl) on Sunday to 215.81 masl at 8 a.m. on Monday—higher than the dam’s spilling level of 212 masl.

“We will celebrate Christmas with floods if the dams do not stop releasing water,” Mayor Jessie de Jesus of Calumpit town said on Monday. “They should allow floodwater in the towns to recede first before they release water. They should not add to our misery.”

But the volume of water reaching the reservoir has gone down, Sta. Rita said.

“We will continue to spill [excess water from Angat Dam] because the inflow [of run-off water from the mountains] remains huge. But we have already started reducing the volume of [discharged water from the dam] because rains have stopped. And that is already good news,” she said in a text message.

Ipo, Bustos dams

She added: “Once we believe it would be safe, we will shut down the gates, regardless of whether the reservoir is still above the spilling level.”

Angat’s discharges flow down to the Ipo and Bustos dams, also in Bulacan and which also released water.

The combined water releases have worsened the floods that affect the Bulacan towns of Norzagaray, Bustos, Pulilan, Calumpit, Hagonoy and Paombong, officials said.

Floodwater also rose to 1.5 meters in Macabebe town in Pampanga due to the rains.

Earlier, Bulacan Gov. Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado asked the national government to build a dam to contain the Bayabas River and accommodate rainwater flowing from the Sierra Madre, to prevent floods from reaching low-lying towns in the province.

De Jesus suggested dredging and widening the Calumpit River, saying siltation had prevented the river from absorbing the volume of rainwater from the mountains.

Before Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, the Department of Public Works and Highways regularly dredged the Angat and Pampanga rivers, he said. No dredging has been undertaken since then.

Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda said she planned to use the P260 million in savings from the province’s calamity fund to buy a dredger to deepen the Pampanga River. With a report from Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon