For three days next week, some 249,000 customers of Maynilad Water Services, Inc. (Maynilad) will suffer water service interruption as the company temporarily shuts down its Putatan Water Treatment Plant
Jennifer Rufo, Maynilad Water's head for stakeholders’ communications office, confirmed this in a text message, saying the company has scheduled a service interruption on September 17 to 19.
“We're temporarily shutting down our Putatan Water Treatment Plant for maintenance and upgrades, and also doing some network enhancements in Cavite. So it hasn't happened yet, though we have issued announcements to affected customers already so they can prepare,” Rufo told Business Bulletin.
The water interruption will affect portions of Las Pinas, Muntinlupa, Paranaque, Pasay and Cavite.
Rufo, however, noted that customers won't experience interruption for 33 hours straight. Rather, they will have a supply window within the 33 hours while Maynilad’s facility is down.
Right now, Metro Manila, home to 12 million people, gets 97 percent of its water needs from Angat Dam, which is being distributed by Maynilad and Manila Water Company Inc.
The 53-year old Angat Dam currently releases 4 million liters of water per day (mld). Of this, Maynilad gets an allocation of about 2,400 mld, while Manila Water Company Inc. gets the remaining 1,600 mld as well as all of the supply coming from La Mesa Dam.
But because the country’s population is growing as well as its water demand, Maynilad has built its Putatan Water Treatment Plant a few years ago to be able to tap water from Laguna Bay, the biggest lake in the Philippines and the second biggest inland freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, as well.
Rufo said that right now, Maynilad is still getting enough raw water supply but “we're closely monitoring water elevation in Angat Dam, together with the other stakeholders of Angat led by NWRB ”.
“Assuming NWRB sees the need to reduce allocation, we have mitigating measures in place. These include our construction of modular treatment plants in Cavite, which will get raw water from Cavite rivers,” Rufo said.
Last week, NWRB already reduced the raw water allocation for Metro Manila to 46 cubic meters per second (cms) from 48 cms amid the declining water level in Angat Dam.
It was also last week when Maynilad said it is investing P350 million for the installment of two MTPs in Cavite that would be enough to supply the needs of some 50,000 customers in the area.
Tapping rivers in Cavite as an alternative raw water source is part of Maynilad’s initiative to provide a medium-term solution to current water security challenges in Metro Manila, the company said.