With both the Angat and La Mesa dams no longer having sufficient capacity, plans of building a third dam have been renewed.

March 2019 saw the beginning of a water crisis that affected — and continues to affec t— millions of Filipinos in Metro Manila and its surrounding areas. While the immediate cause of this shortage depends on who you ask, everyone agrees on the root of the problem: water supply has become too scarce to meet growing demand.

For the most part, solutions to the crisis are focused on fixing and adjusting supply, specifically the sources of this water. With both the Angat and La Mesa dams no longer having sufficient capacity, plans of building a third dam have been renewed, though not without controversy. The two major water concessionaires for the National Capital Region and its environs have also made internal adjustments as to where they source and how they distribute their water to keep supply as consistent as possible. This includes rotating water availability (a euphemism for rationing) across their respective areas to control demand amid low supply. At any rate, the water interruptions to many were a throwback to the early Nineties when low pressure and rationing were the norm.

Contrary to what officials have said at the start of the crisis, the heavy rains in July and August have not been enough to solve the issue. To this day, several areas in and around Metro Manila are still experiencing water shortages, the long lines to fire stations and water-filled trucks with empty buckets and drums slowly becoming a daily reality once more for many Filipinos.

This all boils down to a grim reminder: the current setup of water supply in Metro Manila is no longer enough to meet the region’s needs. With population only continuing to balloon, the demand for water will not lessen anytime soon. And with supply already being insufficient in current conditions, the shortages will only worsen in the future.

In other words, solving this water crisis for the long term means making significant changes to the current set-up.

For the most part, the flow of water in and out of our households is largely linear. Water in dams and reservoirs is sourced from natural resources such as underground lakes and rain. This is then cleaned and treated before being distributed by concessionaires to their clients, in the case of the various residential areas around Metro Manila, through an underground pipe network.

After being used for various purposes, water flows down to drains and undergoes sewage treatment — the quality of which depends on the area — before it is discharged into rivers and seas.

The ongoing water crisis proves that this model is unsustainable, for several reasons beyond the capacity of the dams and reservoirs being too small already for current demand. For one, it is harmful to the environment, what with its continuous extraction of natural resources plus the discharge of untreated sewage into bodies of water (think Manila Bay and Pasig River).

It is also particularly wasteful. The water that flows into a household is extracted from our watersheds and treated by utility companies to the level fit for human consumption — that is, for drinking, cooking, and hygiene. However, only a small fraction of a household’s water usage is devoted to those activities. Most of it is being used for applications that don’t require that level of quality: such as watering the plants, flushing down toilets and cleaning cars.

Instead of discharging used water into seas and rivers, we can instead reuse the water for purposes that don’t require the highest quality. There are specialized sewage treatment systems that recycle the water that goes down our drains and turn it into water that can be used for various non-potable applications.

Of course, the technology we use to treat the water must be capable of doing so at such a level that it will be safe for skin contact. But this is still going to be far less costly than using drinking water to wash the car. Reusing and recycling sewage not only reduces the demand of each household for water, but it also makes the entire process more sustainable.

While many Filipinos may think that the capability to recycle and reuse water only applies to first-world countries, recycling and reuse of sewage has been practiced in the Philippines for over a decade. Environmentally responsible developers, who are also among the most prominent businesspersons of the country, have already installed sewage recycling systems in their malls, hotels, resorts, and educational institutions. These generate savings in water charges while contributing to the minimizing of our potable water footprint.

Surely, taking this model of recycling water and expanding it on a national level would not only solve Metro Manila’s water crisis, but also reduce the country’s water pollution. When water is reused, the sewage that would otherwise be discharged to our seas and rivers will be used for various other productive means. It meets current demand without having to build new dams or reservoirs, and it makes more efficient use of current supply without relying on heavy rains.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. Unlike the malls and hotels where recycling water is already the norm, implementing the same system to communities and subdivisions means taking into account more sources of sewage and more complex networks of pipelines. There are also regulatory restrictions that make this a more difficult undertaking overall.

However, the availability and effectiveness of this model means that solving the crisis doesn’t have to rely on building new dams or rotating water accessibility. With water becoming a more valuable resource, the country should be open to more innovative solutions that adapt to the dynamics of meeting high demand and low supply. And water recycling and reuse may just be the answer everyone is looking for if we are to secure the water needs of generations of Filipinos and sustain the momentum towards the industrialization that now more than ever seems to be within our grasp as a nation.