LAMUT, Ifugao – Farmers of Lamut, Ifugao can now have more reliable and efficient irrigation water delivery with the newly completed diversion dam of the Hapid Irrigation System in this town.
This was assured by Engr. Benito T. Espique, Jr. during the inauguration of the said irrigation facility which was led by Hon. Solomon Chungalao, Representative of the Lone District of Ifugao, Hon. Jerry Dalipog, Governor, other local officials, regional heads of agencies and Irrigators’ Associations held in Brgy. Bimpal on October 1, 2020.
Hapid Irrigation System serves eleven barangays of the Municipality of Lamut. To date, it was able to irrigate 1,040 hectares, which is the target area for this wet season.
“We are more confident nowadays to cultivate our land because this diversion dam assures continuous flow of irrigation water,” said Pedro Bataan, Jr., one of the farmer-beneficiaries and member of the Irrigators’ Association.
Hapid IS, which was first declared open in 2002, used to have a gravity intake-type diversion at the Ibulao River. While the system is operational, the NIA and the farmers encountered problems in the maintenance especially during calamity, and in the dry season when water at the river meanders away from the old intake.
With the clamor for a more stable structure, the P70 million allocation for the diversion dam was finally funded in 2018 and it was completed in May 2020.
According to Engr. Patrick Resureccion, provincial head of NIA-Ifugao Satellite Office, the irrigated area of Hapid Irrigation System can still increase and can reach the firmed-up service area of the system of 2,424 hectares.
The system has a main canal of more than 28 kilometers and lateral canal of 45 kilometers. Of these, only 8.68 kilometers is concreted at the main canal and only 13.65 at the lateral canal.
Resurreccion said that NIA has programmed the continual concreting of main and lateral canals in the succeeding years to help in the efficient flow of irrigation water.
Banner photo by Armando M. Bolislis
