El Niño Phenomenon: MCWD starts water rationing in elevated barangays

Water level at the Buhisan dam has dropped from 6, 000 cubic meters to only 2, 500 cubic meters per day in the last two weeks. /Cebu Daily News photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines – The Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD) has already started rationing water in elevated communities that are located within its service area in the last two weeks.

Charmaine Kara,  MCWD’s Community Relations and External Affairs Department head, said that water rationing resulted from the drop in their water supply by at around 9, 000 cubic meters per day as a result of the El Niño phenomenon that is now experienced in Cebu.

Water level at their Jaclupan facility has dropped by at least 5, 500 cubic meters  from a daily production average of 33, 000 cubic meters  to only 27, 500 cubic meters.

Their Buhisan dam also posted reduced water production of about 3, 500 cubic meters per day from an average production of 6, 000 cubic meters to only 2, 500 cubic meters now.

With their reduced production, Kara said that reduced water service hours are now being experienced in elevated areas like Barangays Banawa and Sambag 1 and the uptown areas in Cebu City and parts of Talisay City in the south.

Kara told Cebu Daily News Digital that they send water tanks to these areas on a daily basis since last week of February to make sure that people here will have water for their use.

In a statement released this morning, March 6, MCWD is asking their consumers “to use only the water that they need to allow the existing supply to last until after the El Niño phenomenon.”

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To add to their existing water supply, MCWD is now in the process of developing four wells within the year as an additional water source for costumers located within their service areas that includes the cities of Cebu, Mandaue, Talisay and Lapu-Lapu and the municipalities of Consolacion, Liloan, Compostela and Cordova.

The water district is looking at the possibility of developing a total of 30 wells in the next few years.

MCWD now produces an average of 238, 000 cubic meters of water.  About 69 percent of their Metro Cebu water supply comes from groundwater sources while the remaining 31 percent or about 74,000 cubic meters or 31 percent comes from surface water sources.