San Fernando, Pampanga—This city with a population of one million and with 8,000 business establishments including six major bottling companies is running out of potable water.
Ferdinand Caylao, vice chairman of the San Fernando Water District, said they are already using the water resources reserved for the next generation of Fernandinos.
If no long-term solution is found and people will not use water properly, the city will have no potable water 15 to 25 years from now, Caylao said.
A mechanical engineer by profession, Caylao said their pumps are now extracting potable water 300 meters deep, as the 100-meter and 200-meter deep stations are no longer producing, having dried up since summer of 2014.
The cause of the problem was the overextraction of water by the bottling companies in Barangays Balite, Quebiawan and San Nicolas, where water resources of the city are concentrated.
“In fact,” Caylao said, “one of the pumps of a giant bottling company who is also producing beer for export is extracting 50 percent of our capacity which is 60 liters per second while the district is only pumping 12 liters per second.”
These bottling companies pay only minimal taxes to the city but expend its water resources, he said. The SFWD is urging them to minimize their production capacity or pay more to compensate for the vanishing water resources.
What aggravated the problem is the ongoing many construction projects in the city like another Aura mall, a 35-hectare city within city. Aside from water resources, the city is also blessed by geography as the regional capital of Central Luzon which is magnet for businesses.
The district has about 35 pump stations but 12 are undergoing retrofitting while four pumping stations are already closed, namely those in Villa Del Sol, Del Pilar, St. Jude, and the City proper.
To prevent the continuing drying up of the aquifer, the district is planning to get 30 percent of its water supply through containment of rain from the dams located in Maliwalo in Bacolor, Cong. Dadong in Arayat and Pulong Bulo in the city.
At the same time, the district is also looking for partnership that will implement its 10-year development plan amounting to P2.2 billion.
Those who applied for partnership are now undergoing assessment on financial, technical, management matters, and experience, including Balibago Water District in Angeles Ctiy, Ayala Water and Prime Water, a Villar company.
Under its development plan, the San Fernando Water District will use Israeli ultraviolet technology called UV to kill bacteria instead of using the traditional method of chlorine for the same purposes.
