City recently requested the Baguio Water District (BWD), the City Planning and Development Office (CPDO) and other concerned government agencies to make a feasibility study for the establishment of additional rain harvesting reservoirs in the city.
In a resolution authored by Councilor Fred Bagbagen, local legislators underscored that water is life and that while there are available spaces declared as city needs for the possible establishment of additional rain water reservoirs, the said proposal is timely for the benefit of the future generations of the city.
Earlier, the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (DOST-PAGASA) disclosed that the mean annual rainfall of the country varies from 965 to 4,064 millimeters yearly.
Further, Baguio city, Eastern Samar, and Eastern Surigao receive the greatest amount of rainfall annually while the southern portion of Cotabato receives the least amount of rain. In general Santos city in Cotabato, the average annual rainfall is only 978 millimeters.
The council claimed that the month with the most rain in the city is August with an average rainfall of 21.1 inches while the month with the least rain in the city is January with an average annual rainfall of 0.5 inches.
After undergoing more than a year of rehabilitation, the council stipulated that the Mount Sto. Tomas rain basin, the city’s largest rain catchment basin facility, has resumed operations in 2018 and is set to provide water again to about 6,000 households in the city and parts of nearby Tuba town.
Further, a newly rehabilitated rain basin, located on top of Mount Sto. Tomas in Tuba, Benguet, can now accommodate more than 700,000 cubic meters of water daily which is an increase from the old capacity of 592,655 cubic meters. The facility is generally used during the dry season to back up the lower water level supply from other sources.
The council pointed out that the feasibility study will be a solution in effectively addressing the gap between supply and demand for the next generations, especially in the city.
