EDC vows not to exceed buffer zone limit for Negros power plant

BACOLOD CITY — The Energy Development Corp. has assured that it will not go beyond the 12.5-hectare buffer zone outside the Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park to access steam for its Northern Negros Geothermal Power Plant in Bago City.

“EDC’s existing area in sitio Pataan (in barangay Mailum, Bago City) and the 12.5 hectares in the buffer zone are sufficient to access the geothermal reservoir given current technology,” EDC assistant vice president for resource management Noel D. Salonga said yesterday.

Salonga said the company has developed Pataan and had utilized only 12.5 hectares of the 169 hectares in the buffer zone granted under the Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park Act.

“This development block has not changed since 2008,” he added.

The EDC had earlier scheduled a temporary shutdown of its plant in July for further resource study. The plant has a production capacity of 40 megawatts (MW) but it was only producing 8 to 9 MW.

The announcement of a shutdown prompted concern among church and environment groups that the EDC would conduct geothermal exploration beyond its area in the buffer zone and would try to enter the Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park.

Dwight A. Maxino, EDC vice president for the Southern and Northern Negros Geothermal, said the EDC has replanted 400 hectares inside the park even if it only used 12.5 hectares in the geothermal buffer zone in Mt. Kanlaon located outside the park.

The EDC has reforested approximately 900 hectares in Negros Occidental from 1995-2010 and would reforest another 420 hectares in Sipalay City and in the towns of Murcia, and Don Salvador Benedicto in Negros Occidental in the next five years under its Binhi greening legacy program, in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Negros Forest and Ecological Foundation Inc., Maxino added.   INQUIRER