ILOILO CITY – Residents of Iloilo City and four neighboring towns will have little or no water supply starting today until Saturday due to repair and upgrading of facilities damaged by typhoon Frank.

The Metro Iloilo Water District, the sole water distributor of the city, said its consumers will experience from low water pressure to no supply from Thursday until Saturday.

The MIWD services more than 30,000 connections in the seven district of Iloilo City and the towns of Cabatuan, Leganes, Maasin, Oton, Pavia, San Miguel and Sta. Barbara.

Edgar Calasara, MIWD officer-in-charge, said in a statement he issued, that the water utility will shut down its operations to undertake inter-connection repairs, construction and upgrading of supply lines and improve water supply.

These include the inter-connection of a by-pass line in Barangay Buntalan in Maasin town with a 24-inch pipeline in Barangay Amerang in Cabatuan town. The MIWD is also conducting dredging operations on its ground reservoir due to sand and silt deposits.

Aside from Iloilo City, the districts of Arevalo, Molo, City Proper, La Paz, Jaro and Mandurriao, are expected to also be affected are the towns of  Pavia, Sta. Barbara, Cabatuan and Maasin.

The MIWD extracts water from the Tigum River through an intake dam in Barangay Daja in Maasin town 29.5 km northwest of Iloilo City. It also gets its supply from 10 pumping stations in deep wells in Pavia, Oton and San Miguel. It normally produces 45,000 cubic meters daily or 1.3 million monthly.

But the massive flooding triggered by typhoon Frank on July 21 severely affected water supply.

The MIWD has implemented a water rationing system rotating its supply to its concessionaires. Businesses including hotels and restaurants have been complaining of the cost of hauling water to supply their establishments.

The flooding damaged the Badon Bridge in Barangay Amerang in Cabatuan resulting to the cutting-off of the 600-mm main transmission line laid out beside the bridge. The storm also damaged the structure of the intake dam in Maasin.

Damage to the main transmission line, which supplies 75 percent of the water supply to the water treatment plant in Sta. Barbara town, has significantly reduced water supply by at least 40 percent to Iloilo City and the towns of Cabatuan, Sta. Barbara and Pavia.

The damage to the main transmission line and intake dam has reached P35 million, according to an MIWD briefing paper.

Calasara said the completion of the repairs and upgrading will improve the water supply from 50 to 80 percent.*NPB

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