No end in sight for Iloilo water crisis
No end is in sight for the water crisis besetting the City as the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) has declined to say when normal service to its consumers will resume.
Already, laborers hired by the MIWD are working round the clock dredging sand and silt from its two water basins in Sta. Barbara town.
Edgar Calasara, MIWD officer-in-charge, told the News Today over the weekend that 2,200 households, about ten percent of its 22,100 consumers in the City, have had their faucets dry since June, when typhoon Frank flooded portions of Panay Island and destroying MIWD's main transmission pipe in Brgy. Amirang in Cabatuan town. The pipe carries water from the dam in Maasin. With its main transmission pipe under restoration, MIWD's production has dwindled to 30,000 cubic meters of potable water every day, down by about 20,000 from its normal production rate of about 50,000 cubic meters a day, Calasara said.
But he refrained from saying when normal operations will resume.
"It's hard to say. There are a lot of variables involved. Besides, we don't want to frustrate our consumer if we can't make it to the deadline," he said.
MIWD supplies water to 31,000 consumers in Iloilo City, and the towns of Oton, San Miguel, Pavia, Sta. Barbara, Cabatuan, and Maasin.
In Iloilo City, Calasara said, hardest hit are residents of the Waterfront barangays in the city proper district and in Jaro district, a densely-populated residential area of the City. Consumers in Mandurriao and Molo districts are experiencing low water pressure.
Meanwhile, water supply to the towns of Pavia and Sta. Barbara towns are intermittent. Maasin and Cabatuan towns have no water supply. Only Oton and San Miguel are not affected because they have their own water source, Calasara said.
According to him, Kirskat Construction, the contractor hired by the MIWD, has so far removed only 25% of the 33,000 cubic meters of sand and silt lodged in the two water basins since it begun last month. The contractor has until January 4 next year to finish dredging.
The operation to remove sand and silt is complicated by the continuous erosion at the water source, Calasara said, explaining why it is taking them a long time to finish dredging their water basins.