Transcript Water Crisis & Alternative Sources Analysis

When the H20 Supply
Problem Gets TOO BIG
Dam you must do,
Damned if you don’t
Prepared by
Michael M. Alunan and Dave S. Garcia
ATIN’TO Development Services
Objectives:
1)Highlight the water shortage problem and
importance of water not only for
consumption, but for irrigation and
agricultural development;
2)Facilitate in weighing the options among the
big dam projects for easy decision-making;
3)Stress the multiplier effects of building
small water dams as a strategy not only to
generate water for consumption and
irrigation, but also to create rural jobs, boost
agricultural productivity and contribute to
overall economic development.
Presentation Outline
1) Comparison among Big Water Projects Linked to
Metro Manila (Angat Dam, Laiban, Wawa);
2) State of Water Shed and lack of Dams to
Capture high Rainfall and the Impact on Soils;
3) Impact on Agricultural Productivity and Poverty
4) Importance of Small Water Impounding Projects
(SWIPs) or small catch basins / water reservoirs;
5) Impact on the Economy
When your project no longer holds water
Angat Dam supplies more than 90% of Metro Manila’s water
needs, but its elevation as of 4 pm Sunday July 18, was
down to its lowest at 157.59 meters. This is way below the
180 meter critical level, and even lower than the dam’s
lowest level of 158.15 meters in Sept. 1998, an El Niño year.
Although levels are climbing with the rains setting in, water
supply reserves are still not enough to meet rising
demand for water from an increasing urban population.
Angat Dam- multipurpose dam supplies about 95% or 2,400
Million liters a day (MLD) of Metro Manila’s water demand
thru the La Mesa Dam. It covers some 28,000 hectares and
irrigates about 78,000 hectares of catch basin area for flood
control and generates 200MW of hydroelectric power
Expansion is called
“Angat Water Supply
Optimization Project”
and increases H20
volume by 1,300
Million Liters a Day.
Umiray Angat
Transbasin is 2nd
stage of expansion
and involves
another 1000 MLD .
Laiban Dam – 1900 MLD capacity dam with an area of
28T hectares , P65B project cost with target completion
date by 2017 . It is 70 kms away from La Mesa with 30
kms tunnel.
It will
displace
3,500
families
in 7
barangays
of Tanay &
destroy
20,000
hectares
of forest
cover. .
Wawa dam – 26T hectares (same as Laiban) watershed
in Montalban is 4 kms away from La Mesa Dam.
Its present
capacity of
50 MLD can
be increased
to 900 MLD
If Boso2 will
be repaired
at the same
time. Full
Production
can reach
1,500 MLD
in 4 years.
Dams Area
Laiban
Wawa
Capacity
Million
Liters
Daily
MLD
27,000 1,900
26,000 50 to
1500
Project
Cost
P65B
Time
Needed
10
years
6
months
Initially
to 4
P1.5B
years
Impact to
Forest
Cover
Families
Affected
Distance
To La
Mesa
24,000
3,500
70 kms
w/
30kms
tunnel
hectares
Unknown
yet
Not
Known
4 kms.
Comparison of Big Dam
Water Projects
Revival & expansion of the unused
Wawa Dam from 50 to 1500 MLD
capacity. This can be reinforced
further by also tapping the nearby
Boso-Boso Dam.
Angat Water Supply Optimization
Project & Umiray-Angat Transbasin
Project for additional 2300 MLD
 Laiban Dam only 1,900 MLD
State of Watershed
and its
Impact on Soils
and
Agricultural Productivity
Most of water sheds are gone
Bold bald truth
Of the 15M hectares of
original natural forest
lands, the virgin forests
left are now less than
700,000 hectares. Tree
plantations cannot
replace the
bio-diversity that
is totally lost.
Soil erosion downhill
Extreme Wet and Dry Problems
Forests and water sheds
are now being depleted,
while there are not
enough dams and catch
basins to trap the high
rainfall. Thus, with the
tropical country’s high
rainfall, the heavy rainfall
results in massive
flashfloods that bring
destruction to lowlands
and tremendous soil
erosion of fertile
agricultural top soil.
This eventually results in
desertification and idle
barren wastelands.
The Water Paradox : The Irony gets too big
RP has high rainfall yet lacks water
not only for consumption but for irrigation
Agricultual scientists believe that although fertilizers,
hybrid varieties and other inputs are necessary for good
harvests, the top three things, agricultural crops need
before you use other farm inputs are the following:
1) Water
2) Water
3) Water
Without water irrigation, agriculture productivity will
drop or stagnate.
There is therefore WISDOM in harnessing water
from rain. Hopefully, it is more DAM than WISH.
Study by Arsenio Balisacan, PhD. Entiled “Philippine
Agriculture: Are We Ready for Competition?” notes:
 Farm yields are stagnating or falling compared
to other countries, thus causing rural poverty.
 From 1980-2000, China’s total agricultural
productivity alone grew by 4.7 % a year, a
whopping 4,600% higher than RP’s growth
of only 0.1% a year for the same period.
Farmer and his ‘BEAST’ friend.
 Thailand grew by 1 % a year, or 900% more.
 Indonesia grew by 1.6% a year, or 1,500%
more than RP’s 0.1% agricultural productivity
growth a year from 1980-2000.’
RICE AND FALL?
2000-2002 RP rice yields lowest at 3 MT per hectare
 China at 6 MT per hectare
 Indonesia and Vietnam at 4.1 per hectare
 Myanmar 3.2 MT
East and Southeast Asia: 3.6 MT per hectare,
The Grain of Truth
2002-2002 RP corn yields lowest: 1.7 MT hectare
 China: average corn yields: 4.7 MT
 Vietnam and Indonesia: 2.8 MT per hectare
 Myanmar: 1.9 MT per hectare
East and Southeast Asia: 2.5MT per hectare
Paradox of Philippine Agriculure
 While the Philippines has the lowest average farm yields,
the technologies it has developed in rice are among the
best in the world, considering it has IRRI and PhilRice;
 Achieving 13- 15 MT per hectare are common. There was
even a Filipino farmer who attained 17.5 MT per hectare;
 But because there has been no massive large-scale
infrastructures in dams, catch basins and irrigation facilities,
for both lowland and uplands, the average farm yields
remain low , despite improvements the last few years.
 There may have been slight improvements on this decadeold data, but definitely other countries have also gone
much further ahead, thus leaving us still far behind.
With low investments in agriculture like irrigation,
farm yields are low, resulting in widespread poverty
Man is reduced to
a ‘beast of burden’
Poverty is worse in rural areas
NSCB) & ADB report:
Metro
Manila’s
poverty incidence
is only less than
10% in 2003;
Masbate’s poverty
incidence is about
61.4 %;
Sulu is the worst at
67.1% poverty level;
Most of the 1.5
billion poor Asians,
who earn only
US$2 a day or less,
live in rural areas.
Badjaos of Sulu / Basilan
Vintas of Sulu seas
A mini dam can do many?
A small mini dam is
better than a big huge
hydro electric dam.
Of course mini dams
and catch basins or
reservoirs cannot
produce energy,
although there are now
mini-hydro power plants
that can run on mere
mountain streams.
But a mini dam can do
more in many mini ways.
A law already exist to build small dams,
 There’s
already an existing but unenforced law, Republic Act
No. 6716, which is supposed to build catch basins, small
dams, and water wells in all of the country’s barangays;
 The law was passed as early as 1989 during the time of
the late Pres. Cory Aquino;
 It mandates that that there should be over 100,000 rainwater
catch basins nationwide by 1991, says environmentalist
lawyer and U.P. Professor Atty Antonio Oposa Jr;
 Total catch basins and mini dams
buillt by DPWH is only a miniscule
0.004 percent of the goal, Oposa said
thru media reports.
But Mini dams & Many catch basins can
Boost Agriculture and Wipe out Poverty
S.W.I.Ps can be built on every strategic sloping area
by employing millions of rural folks in a massive
labor-intensive, pick and shovel if necessary,
construction frenzy;
The catch basins can serve as sources of water that
can be treated and purified for drinking water;
The same SWIPS or catch basins can provide
productivity-enhancing drip irrigation for crops planted
downhill;
The catch basins can also be filled with fish as
another source of livelihood;
Dams you must do, damned if you don’t
Small dams or SWIPS can reverse the steady decline in
the country’s physical economy, an economic concept
originated by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz;
 Even NEDA records show that agriculture, for instance,
steadily declined as a percentage of total economy from
about 29 percent in 1971, to 23.5 % in 1980, down to
22.47% in 1990, and down to only 17.5% in 2005.
Industry as a share of total economy dropped steadily from
40.52 percent in 1980, down to 35.8 percent in 1990, and to
30.7 percent in 2005. (More so with manufacturing)
Services sector has swelled to about 60% of GDP. Although
some services are socially necessary, they do not create
physical wealth. Some services have dubious value to the
economy (i.e. elevator boys), but still counted as part of GDP.
Govt must invest in rural dams,
Coz Private sector will not do it
Private Sector will not invest in rural infrastructures
or small dams, unless these will help their business;
 Thus, infrastructures are inherently a function of
government, which pioneers into frontier lands and
venture projects;
 Left alone in an unbridled free market, business
will always tend to choose what is conveniently
profitable----- invest more in short-term commerce,
trade, banking and services and not in backbreaking agriculture or industry, what more in public
infrastructures with long-gestating returns;
On solving unemployment, let’s learn from
Nobel prize economist
Dr. Arthur Okun and his
“OKUN’s LAW.
It simply states that:
“For every one percent (1%) decrease in
the unemployment rate, one achieves a
3% increase in output or growth rate.”
The logical strategy is to invest where the bulk of
the unemployed & 2/3 of those below the poverty
line are based---in AGRICULTURE. Thus it is wise
for government to invest in rural infrastructures.
And our small dam projects then become TOO BIG
in strategic importance.
Let’s learn from HIS
STORY
US Pres Franklin D. Roosevelt solved widespread 52%
unemployment during the Great Depression with his New
Deal policy that wiped out joblessness almost overnight;
One of his New Deal programs, which contributed to
generating about 11 million jobs in two months, was the
Civilian Conservation Corps.
The CCC mobilized millions of
unemployed youngsters, who
were herded into training
camps for skills upgrading to
build water dams, bridges,
roads, farms, and various
other infrastructures and
March of jobless to progrss.
industries.
US Pres. Franklin Roosevelt’s
New Deal programs mobilized the unemployed into training camps that gave them
skills to build roads, water dams, bridges, farms, and various productive industries.
Contact Details:
ATIN’TO Development Services
Michael M. Alunan:
(0906) 38-58- 958
(0933) 61-54-150
Email: [email protected]
[email protected]
Dave S. Garcia:
(0927) 79-28-583
Email: [email protected]
Thank you