A Day Trip to Angat Dam, Ipo Dam and La Mesa Water Treatment Plant

Without it we wouldn’t flourish. Without it we wouldn’t live. Water is an essential element to life and without it we wouldn’t survive. Do you notice though how sometimes we take it for granted? I went on a day trip to Angat Dam, Ipo Dam and La Mesa Water Treatment Plant 2 of Maynilad and learned about how they work, how they’re maintained and why we need to pay more attention to our water consumption.

Angat Dam

In all honesty, I don’t know much about how our water system works. Like most everyone, I know who provides my water and only pay attention if there are water interruptions. Living in the far north my water provider is Maynilad Water Services, Inc. After what I learned on our educational trip, I’m lucky enough to say that we don’t have water interruptions often. I realized how lucky I was when my fellow trip mates shared their water interruption schedules with some having daily interruptions.

Like me you’re probably aware that Maynilad is one of two private water providers. Maynilad services the West Zone of the Greater Metro Manila area covering 540 square kilometers making it the largest water concessionaire in terms of customer base. Some facts about Maynilad to get a better grasp of what they are:

Operates and maintains:

  • 4 water treatment plans
  • 22 wastewater treatment plants
  • 36 pumping stations
  • 32 reservoirs

Just reading that makes you realize what a massive operation it takes to provide us our water. At present Maynilad’s customer base is up to 9.7 million people.

Our day trip started with a visit to Angat Dam. The Angat Dam, located in Norzagaray Bulacan provides about 96% of raw water for Metro Manila. This flows to Ipo Dam and then to the Novaliches Portal where it’s then divided between the two private water providers, Manila Water for the East Zone and Maynilad for the West Zone. Maynilad has 60% of the water because of its bigger customer base.

If you didn’t already know, a dam is a barrier constructed to hold water so it can be used for generating electricity or for domestic consumption. This is why Angat Dam was developed. Ipo Dam, on the other hand, was developed to divert water coming from Angat Dam so that it can be distributed to Metro Manila customers.

Ipo Dam

A portion of the Ipo Dam that I’m allowed to share. For security purposes we weren’t allowed to take pictures and videos of certain parts of the structures.

The raw water supply from Angat and Ipo Dams are shared between Maynilad and Manila Water but only Manila Water gets the raw water from La Mesa Dam.

We were lucky to be able to take a tour of Angat and Ipo Dam and Maynilad’s La Mesa Water Treatment Plant. Not everyone is privileged to do so. It was awe inspiring to be in the middle of nature and see how it all works.

with Water Supply Operations Head, Engr. Ronaldo Padua and Joy of joybites.com

What you Need to Know about the Daily Water Interruptions:

During the trip, I found out that a government agency called National Water Resources Board (NWRB) is the one deciding on the allocation of water from Angat Dam for both Maynilad and Manila Water. Meaning, the reason why we started experiencing daily water interruption since June 2019 is because NWRB reduced the raw water allocation for Maynilad and Manila Water.

Initially, NWRB reduced the raw water allocation because the water level in Angat Dam reached below critical level.

When rains started to come in, Angat Dam was able to slowly recover. Although water level in the dam is now above the critical mark, NWRB realizes that it is still not at the ideal level, particularly because summer is fast approaching and water consumption is expected to increase.

Thus, NWRB decided to retain a reduced raw water allocation for Maynilad and Manila Water, at 42 cubic meters per second (cms) versus the normal 48 cms, to ensure that there is still water that we can use come summer months.

This is the reason why some customers continue to experience daily rotational water service interruptions since June 2019 – they want to preserve the limited raw water supply in Angat Dam to prepare for summer 2020.

Just like with anything in life, you work with what you have. The same goes for water supply. When Maynilad started to get less than the normal raw water allocation, they’re tasked with ensuring that they are still able to provide water to all their covered areas. This is when we experience daily rotational water interruptions. Schedules have to be made so that each area has water for several hours daily, giving all customers an opportunity to store water. The dream would be of course, to have water 24/7 but with circumstances like this they try to make sure we have water in our homes at the most optimal time.

Sometimes we complain why do we have water at this time? Or why do they only give us this many hours of water?  These are based on certain factors such as highest time of usage and topography. Low-lying areas will get water supply first after a service interruption because it takes time for water pressure to stabilize in the pipelines before the supply can be pumped up to higher elevations.

Have you wondered about the water discoloration when water does come back? In technical terms, it’s mineral deposits from the pipes and all we really need to do is let the water flow out briefly until it clears.

As best they can, Maynilad gives us a daily schedule of water interruptions so we can each prepare and store for times we won’t have water.

Summer Preparations

During summer, we usually require more water because of the heat. But since Maynilad is still receiving less than the normal water allocation, this could mean that we may experience longer daily rotational water service interruptions if NWRB further reduces water releases from Angat Dam. Thus, as early as last year, Maynilad has been implementing several measures to get more water supply and thus mitigate the impact of the reduced allocation.

  1. Optimizing from Laguna Lake- The Putatan Water Treatment Plant 1 (PWTP 1) is Maynilad’s first facility to draw water from Laguna Lake as an alternative to Angat Dam.
  2. Second Treatment Plant- Maynilad has invested in a second treatment plant, PWTP 2 to draw even more water from Laguna Lake to add to the supply for distribution to customers.
  3. Reactivating deeps wells- Deep well operations had been ordered to be stopped previously but the current situation calls for reactivation of the wells in specific areas to add more water supply.
  4. Continued repairs of old pipes- Maynilad inherited one of the oldest pipe networks dating back to Spanish times. Imagine how old those pipes are! Slowly but surely these pipes are being replaced which in turn helps to lessen water loss.
  5. Modular treatment plants- Aside from getting water from Laguna Lake, Maynilad is now also looking to extract raw water from Cavite rivers.
  6. Deployment of mobile water tankers and stationery water tanks- At present, Maynilad has a total of 69 mobile water tankers and 32 stationery water tanks. You may have seen one in your neighborhood.
  7. Cloud-seeding- A weather modification technique that produces rain water. Though this technique works there’s no guarantee that the rain will fall into the area of the dams.

Ultimately, the long-term solution is for the MWSS to develop a new dam or source of raw water, since climate change is real and population continues to increase. Fortunately, I heard that MWSS is in the process of doing so.

Now I understand the steps that Maynilad has to take to try and make sure water is provided for all. I also realized their efforts go unnoticed because we tend to look at what we don’t have rather than what we do. With so much coming into play just to make sure everything is functioning it’s a challenging responsibility to live up to.

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