What do you think of the La Mesa watershed issue? Should the MWSS employees be allowed to build their houses within La Mesa? When this happens, it is likely that human waste will contaminate the reservoir and potable water for the 13 million residents of Metro Manila and 8 million inhabitants of Cavite and parts of Rizal province.
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Below is the article for your full understanding:
MWSS chief says La Mesa at risk
Administrator Orlando Hondrade of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) admitted on Tuesday the existence of a housing complex for the water agency’s top executives within the La Mesa watershed at a Senate committee hearing.
Sen. Pia Cayetano, chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, had called an investigation to determine the veracity of reports that MWSS executives had built their own houses in the watershed, which environmentalists fear could contaminate the 700-hectare reservoir, the source of potable water for the 12 million Metro Manila residents.
To a question posed by the senator, Hondrade replied most MWSS top executives and their families had already moved to the houses in the three-hectare executive village. He also said he owned one of the 54 houses but hastened to add that it had a floor area of only 60 square meters.
"It was originally a 30-square-meter house, but I extended it to have a receiving room, just one room," he said.
The existence of the MWSS executive village came to light when Marianito Canonigo of Sinag, a nongovernment organization, one of the founding members of Save La Mesa Dam coalition, broke the news.
The Save La Mesa Dam Coalition had opposed the proposed 58-hectare housing project for the 1,411 MWSS rank-and-file employees.
In the Senate hearing Hondrade owned up to the possibility of human waste leaching into the reservoir from the houses if their construction is allowed to proceed. He assured the committee, however, that measures are in place to ensure that household waste, including sewage, does not drain untreated into the reservoir.
The measures, according to Honrade, include the construction of the P46 million waste-treatment plant, where household water is treated before it is allowed to empty into the reservoir.
Asked by Cayetano if the MWSS employees and retirees have that kind of money, Honrade replied that the water agency has stipulated the inclusion of the treatment plant in the contract awarded to the company that would build the houses.
Contamination a distinct possibility
He was forced to acknowledge the danger after Virgilio Basa, an expert from the National Mapping and Resources Authority of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, informed the committee that contamination was a distinct possibility. Both the proposed and existing housing projects, he noted, are located above the man-made lake.
Jaime Jose Fernandez, project director of Bantay Kalikasan, questioned the effectiveness of a waste-treatment plant. No conceivable measure, he said, can be adopted to prevent contamination. In support of this view, he cited the study made by the National Hydraulic Research Center of the University of the Philippines’ College of Engineering.
"It (La Mesa Dam watershed) is the only remaining forest of its size in Metro Manila," Fernandez said. "We hope the government would declare it a protected area."
A tract of land or body of water classified as protected is off limits to man-made structures, including residential houses.
The 700-hectare lake, replenished all year round from Angat Dam in Bulacan, is the source of potable water for the 13 million residents of Metro Manila and 8 million inhabitants of Cavite and parts of Rizal province.
Relocation the best solution
To a suggestion from Cayetano, Genaro Bautista, president of the Kaisahan at Kapatiran ng mga Manggagawa at Kawani ng Nawasa, said he would ask the MWSS employees and retirees if they would consent to relocate their housing site outside the watershed.
Cayetano said relocation seemed to be the best solution to the problem. She noted there have been assurances that contamination could be prevented, but there is no point risking it.
For his part, Canonigo said the government should remove the houses in the MWSS executive village. He said the site is within a one-kilometer radius from the reservoir. The proposed housing for ordinary employees is three kilometers away.
"Fairness requires the removal of the houses if we don’t allow the development of a housing project for ordinary employees in the same watershed," Canonigo said.
La Mesa covers 2,700 hectares, of which 2,000 are classified as forestland