APO AGUA Infrastructura Inc. (Apo Agua) disproved allegations about the Panigan-Tamugan River drying up due to development activities.
Apo Agua External Relations Officer May Che Capili said there is enough water coming from the watershed to supply the bulk water supply project.
After a series of no-shows in the city council, Apo Agua and Davao City Water District (DCWD) appeared during the regular session on Jan. 9 to air out their side.
Citing historical data, Apo Agua reported about 600 million liters of water on the stream flow daily. Of that number, they are using only about 300 million liters, representing a 40-50% on average allowed by the Natural Water Resources Board.
“We passed the minimum requirement, including the environmental flow. It is prioritized na merong mapupunta always downstream, any excess water from our facility will flow back to the Tamugan River,” Capili said.
An environmental flow requires every water resource allocation to have a certain amount of water reverted to the natural source to maintain its condition.
Capili also stressed that Apo Agua did not establish any dam in the river to cause the depletion.
She said the river historically has a low flow of water for 1-2 months, which was observed last July 2023, and not due to their development activities.
Capili said they started construction in August 2023 which was sequential to the testing and commissioning phase that they did not want to cut short, causing their delayed appearance. It can be recalled both the companies swore in the reply letter to attend the last session of Aug or the first week of September.
The pending appearance was also due to their request to be given ample time to finalize the dates of the distribution of water supply after months of postponement.
“We had to do in parallel, especially the testing and commissioning without compromising the structural integrity of our facilities, thorough joint monitoring, joint water quality analysis with most of our laboratories to ensure the potability and reliability of water,” she said.
“We want what we present to the public, especially to the city council, so that the public will feel the water flowing,” she stressed, which took them a month before announcing it to the public.
Apo Agua has been supplying the water to the DCWD, which in turn distributes it to all its six water supply systems since Dec. 1, 2023.
Capili said now that the bulk water project is fully operational, diversion is conducted daily to perform their obligation of supplying the water to the water district bound for distribution.
At present, the DCWD is looking at 65% of all its service coverage receiving the bulk water supply, however is still subject to change due to operational adjustments. With its full implementation, existing production wells are up for rehabilitation to improve yield.
