MWSS assures no critical drop at Angat Dam

Despite the continued drop of Angat Dam’s water level (WL), the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) said that it would not plunge further to its critical level.

According to MWSS spokesperson, Engr. Patrick Dizon, the decreasing WL of the said dam is normal during these warm months.

“On historical records, during these months, our reservoir is really on a downtrend. It declines around 0.3 to 0.4 centimeters every day [because] there is really no rain in our watershed during the first and second quarters of this year,” Dizon told the DAILY TRIBUNE.

"Starting in June and July, [the water level] will start to increase,” he noted, citing the projection of PAGASA on the increasing probability of La Nina’s occurrence in the coming months.

“According to them, by the end of May, starting in June, the rainfall in the watershed will start to become normal. That's the time we expect our reservoir to go up,” he said.

“If there is no rain in May and June, it will really fall to the minimum operating level of 180 meters, but it will not fall to the critical level of 160 meters,” Dizon added.

The MWSS recently started decreasing the water pressure of concessionaires in Metro Manila as a step toward managing the decrease in Angat Dam’s water elevation.

According to Dizon, this is to avoid the water reduction reaching 0.5 centimeters per day.

“What we are doing is continuing to implement our additional water sources because now almost 90 percent of our water requirement comes from Angat Dam. What we are doing is that we have implemented water treatment plans in Laguna Lake and we have rehabilitated deep wells, so just in case the elevation from the Angat Dam decreases, we still have a source of water,” he said.

The Angat Dam, located in Norzagaray, Bulacan, supplies raw water to the majority of Metro Manila areas and irrigates about 28,000 hectares of farmland in Bulacan and Pampanga.

As of 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, its WL was recorded at 196.15 meters, -15.85 meters short of its normal high WL of 212.00 meters.