Cebu City Hall to review drainage master plan

IS a seven-year-old drainage master plan sufficient to stop flooding in Cebu City?

Mayor Michael Rama said he wants to find out in a meeting with Engr. Pedro Adonis Compendio, architect of the plan and city engineering officials.

Some officials of the Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW) don’t think so.

“The master plan wasn’t comprehensive because it only identified macro solutions,” said Engr. June Nadine Sison, head of the DEPW’s construction division.

She said the DEPW already implemented micro-drainage projects to provide arterial outlets for floodwaters.

The drainage master plan identified five major solutions to the city’s flooding problems.

These involved building rainwater catchment and infiltration beds, detention ponds or mini-dams, channel and drainage improvements.

The DEPW said the city already implemented 67 to 68 percent of the projects identified in the master plan.  Sison said the mini dams and detention ponds alone were already 60 percent complete.

The master plan proposed the buiilding of 14 mini dams and detention ponds in Sapangdaku, Kalunasan, Mahiga, Bulacao and Lahug rivers.

So far, the city completed last Nov. 15 the construction of a detention pond worth P2 million along the Mahiga Creek in the vicinity of barangay Apas.

Construction of a mini dam worth P1.6 million at the back of the GMA 7 complex was also completed on Oct. 30, 2010.

A second Mahiga Creek detention pond worth P1.9 million was temporarily suspended due to the absence of a barangay Banilad council resolution endorsing the project.

The construction of a P1.4 million mini dam along the Lahug river in sitio Laguerta was also completed on Sept. 2009 while a detention pond worth P2.6 million that was built on the same river near barangay Busay was completed last Dec.

Three more mini dams to be built along the Sapangdaku, Kalunasan and Bucalaco rivers are proposed for construction this year at P10.5 million each or P31.5 million.

The amount would be included in the second supplemental budget which Rama would soon submit to the City Council for review and approval.

Bidding would also be called on July 27 for P53.9 million worth of dredging projects.

This will include the dredging of the 3.8 kilometer creek from the Mambaling access of the SRP to the shoreline located under the south coastal road bridge which connects the SRP and Talisay City that was pegged at P22.5 million.