The Baguio Water District (BWD) recently assured residents and tourists that the water being supplied to its more than 48,000 consumers is potable, safe and pursuant to the Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water.
BWD general manager Engr. Royeca underscored that the water district regularly conducts series of tests and treatment of the water from its various sources to ensure that it will be safe and potable before being supplied to the consumers that is why it is highly improbable that the contamination of the supply will come from its existing sources.
He claimed that the water district divided the city into areas and segments that is why if there will be problems on the water supply in certain areas, it would be easy to isolate the problematic area or segment to prevent the further spread of contamination aside from the institution of the appropriate solutions to the problems that will arise in the places being provided with water supply.
The BWD official pointed out that if consumers experience turbidity, or encounter foul smell from their water supply, they should immediately report the matter to the water district so that appropriate action will be instituted to address the said concern.
According to him, the BWD has various processes that are in place in treating the water from its sources before being distributed to the various distribution points and eventually to the consumers in the city’s barangays.
For the water from deep wells which is considered to be double A, BWD implements chlorination to treat the water before being distributed to the consumers.
On the other hand, Royeca explained that for water from open sources such as its rain catchment basins, the water passes through stringent processes ranging from water quality, sedimentation, aeration, micro-filtration and chlorination before being released to BWD’s distribution system for its consumers.
Further, he disclosed that BWD heavily invested in the procurement of ultra-violet disinfection systems from Israel to help in ensuring the safety and potability of the water being supplied to the consumers amidst the issue on water contamination that caused the diarrhea outbreak in the city.
Royeca asserted that BWD conducts daily chlorination of the water in its distribution tanks while bacteriological tests are also done monthly and that chemical tests are also conducted annually.
Moreover, results of the aforesaid tests are regularly furnished to the Local Water Utilities Administration for monitoring, validation and evaluation purposes.
He underscored that there should be a series of tests that should be conducted by concerned experts from various agencies before coming out with conclusions that the source of the diarrhea outbreak is water contamination to prevent residents and tourists from being alarmed over such a scenario which will not be good for the business sector in general.
Royeca emphasized that the BWD is willing to extend assistance to concerned government agencies and the city government to conduct the said tests to ascertain the root cause of the outbreak. By Dexter A. See
