ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS
2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year 2021 Pro Patria Award PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY 2018 Data Champion
EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS
BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR
(2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021) DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS
www.businessmirror.com.ph
A broader look at today’s business n
Sunday, July 16, 2023 Vol. 18 No. 272
P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 12 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK
Maynilad steps up work for water recycling facilities for Valenzuela, Muntinlupa, Pasay
‘EVERY DROP COUNTS’
ANGAT Dam, situated in Barangay San Lorenzo (Hilltop), Norzagaray, Bulacan, is an important water source for Metro Manila. Located within the Angat Watershed Forest Reserve, it supplies potable water to the capital region and generates hydro-electric power. This reservoir meets around 90 percent of Metro Manila’s raw water needs, managed by the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System. Additionally, it supports irrigation for approximately 28,000 hectares of farmland in Bulacan and Pampanga provinces. BERNARD TESTA
N
By Jonathan L. Mayuga
EW Water, Maynilad Water Services Inc.’s recycled water, will soon reach more customers in Parañaque and three other cities within its concession area to reduce customer dependence on the supply coming from the Angat Dam. Maynilad, the largest private water concessionaire of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) in terms of customer base, disclosed the plan, as the water level in Angat Dam compelled the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) on Sunday, July 8, 2023, to reduce water allocation for Metro Manila and nearby provinces. Because of the drastic cut in water supply, Maynilad announced that daily water interruption would be implemented, affecting customers in the Camanava area, Manila and Quezon City. Last week, the newly created Water Resources Management Office (WRMO) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has intensified its drive to conserve water, appealing to government agencies to fix pipe leaks and faulty toilet facilities and extending calls to the public to do the same and even practice rainwater harvesting for non-essential water uses, to reduce dependence on water coming from Angat Dam.
NWRB Executive Director Sevillo David and DENR-WRMO chief Carlos Primo David said Maynilad’s New Water or recycled water is one of the strategies to diversify the source of water for Metro Manila. The new water initiative, the officials told the BusinessMirror in separate interviews, is just one of several strategies to augment the supply from Angat Dam, the water level of which has fallen to 178 meters above sea level, which is below the 180 meters above sea level normal operating level. “Maynilad’s New Water is a welcome initiative,” the DENRWRMO chief said, adding it will augment the water supply for Metro Manila other than tapping from the Laguna de Bay. He said the initiative is a short-term solution that will avert another episode of water supply shortage, especially since the New Centennial Water Source—Kaliwa Dam Project, which is a long-term solution to the perennial water supply problem in Metro Manila—is expected to go online or operational in the next
three to five more years. He said after a meeting with officials of Maynilad that the company is stepping up ongoing works to construct more facilities in other areas. “Recycling water like Maynilad’s New Water is just one of the strategies to augment our water supply. Even Singapore is using used water. They reprocess the used water to make it potable,” the DENR-WRMO chief said.
Angat-dependent population
CURRENTLY, Metro Manila’s estimated population of 12 million people, including nearby provinces, still primarily rely on Angat Dam for water supply. With the growing population’s increasing demand for water, plus the strain on existing sources due to pollution and climate-change effects, there is a need to consider using previously untapped sources—including treated used water—to augment available supplies for drinking, Jennifer Rufo, corporate communication head of Maynilad, explained to the BusinessMirror via email. “Since Maynilad’s sewage treatment plants regularly collect used water from households and subject it to treatment so that it meets the government’s effluent standards, it seemed like a waste of resource to just throw that treated used water to nearby creeks and rivers per usual practice. If this treated used water is made to pass through additional treatment processes, it can become potable again,” she explained. According to Maynilad, if the
company is able to implement potable water reuse on a wider scale, it has another alternative supply source—one that is more reliable than traditional sources like the Angat Dam and Laguna Lake, which can be affected by droughts or typhoons that, in turn, affect the availability of water supply. “Tapping reused water will also reduce reliance on deep wells for alternative supply, which will ultimately help with the replenishment of groundwater systems, thus avoiding land subsidence and saltwater intrusion in underground aquifers,” Rufo, said, adding that recycling and reuse are central to a circular economy approach, which involves maximizing resources to address crises on climate, biodiversity and pollution.
Clean, safe drinking water
MAYNILAD guarantees the safety of New Water, noting that before it commenced with piped-in distribution, New Water was subjected to strict monitoring by all regulating bodies, particularly the Department of Health (DOH). “This is the country’s first-ever foray into potable water reuse, so rigorous monitoring is necessary to ensure that all drinking quality parameters are met and that no contaminants remain in the final product water released by our New Water Treatment Plant,” Rufo said. Per Maynilad’s proposed Business Plan for 2023 to 2027, the private water concessionaire of MWSS’s West Zone said on top of expanding the capacity of its Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in Parañaque, the company targets to
operate similar New Water facilities in Valenzuela, Muntinlupa and Pasay City. “Now in the final stages of construction is the one in Valenzuela, which we hope to start operating within the year, assuming we are able to secure the necessary permits from the DOH,” Rufo said. She said all four New Water Treatment Plants should be “up and running” within the next five years. “We target to complete and start operating the one in Valenzuela within 2023. Once operational, these four New Water facilities will have a combined capacity of 89 million liters per day (MLD), which is enough to supply some 483,000 customers,” she said. To recall, DOH granted a permanent operational permit to Maynilad’s New Water facility in Parañaque last month, which signaled the company’s expansion of its New Water project. “Following the successful pilot implementation of our potable water reuse project in Parañaque, Maynilad plans to eventually expand the production and distribution of New Water supply to more areas within its concession,” said Rufo. However, she said Maynilad could only implement it in areas where the company’s sewage treatment plants have a high discharge volume “since it is this discharge that we collect and convert to drinking water.” For its plans in other areas, similar to what it did in the Parañaque New Water Treatment Plant, the firm will only proceed with
piped-in distribution once these additional facilities pass stringent review from all relevant stakeholders, including the local health offices and the DOH, Rufo assured the public. Currently, the Paranaque New Water Treatment Plant serves around 2,472 service connections in Barangays San Dionisio and San Isidro in Parañaque City. The 2,474 service connections currently being served with New Water supply from its facility in Parañaque is only around 0.16 percent of Maynilad’s total customer base. “If we can fully realize our plans to build additional New Water facilities in the other cities mentioned above, we can expand the New Water beneficiaries to more than 483,000 people over the next five years,” she said. The Metro Manila concessionaires of MWSS are supposed to be getting 46 cubic meters per second (CMS) from Angat Dam. That’s around 4,000 MLD. Of this 4,000 MLD, Maynilad’s share is 60 percent or 2,400 MLD because it has a bigger customer base than the other concessionaire. As long as Maynilad receives its rightful share of 2,400 MLD from Angat Dam, it says it can maintain 24/7 water services to its customers. However, the drastic cut in water allocation for Metro Manila has become a perennial problem, especially during El Niño or the long season of drought, as the water level at Angat falls way below the normal operating level.
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 54.5680 n JAPAN 0.3953 n UK 71.6587 n HK 6.9763 n CHINA 7.6335 n SINGAPORE 41.2706 n AUSTRALIA 37.5755 n EU 61.2635 n KOREA 0.0431 n SAUDI ARABIA 14.5449 Source: BSP (July 14, 2023)