NEW EXEC VOWS MORE PIPELINES Oro folk urge COWD: Fix city's water woes

By Franck Dick Rosete Correspondent

SEVERAL residents in this city don’t want to suffer the continuous problem in the water supply, knowing the struggle they have to go through that affects their daily lives.

Because of this, they demanded that the government-run Cagayan de Oro City Water District (COWD) solve the problem as soon as possible.

Bretlane Marianas, a resident of Sitio Macanhan in Barangay Carmen, said nighttime should be their moment to relax and unwind, but it turned out to be their time to secure all of their drums for water storage.

Normally, the water connection at the Marianas’ residence temporarily vanishes around 6:00 in the morning, and it usually goes back around 9:00 in the evening at the latest.

“It would be better if we collected water during the morning, but we finish at dawn because when [the water supply] has returned, it’s like a pee,” Marianas said.

“We even stopped doing our laundry every morning because we do it at night until dawn,” she added.

Marianas said they already contacted the COWD about the problem since last year, but the problem has not been solved.

The neighboring residents in the said area have also been experiencing no water supply every morning, but it normally returns around noon.

“[The water supply] returns around 12 noon and allows us to collect one drum, then it vanishes again. Then it would return around 10:00 in the evening,” said Claudine Claire Bengal, living a few houses away from the residence of Marianas.

Engr. Antonio Young, COWD general manager, explained that every morning is a “peak hour” due to the number of residents who use water supply, adding the excess water lines per stub-outs.

“In one stub-out, the maximum would be 20 [waterlines]… sometimes it would reach 25 or 30”,” Young said in a phone interview on Wednesday, April 19.

The general manager said they considered the additional number of water lines per stub-out as their way to help the householders who just applied for a water connection, considering the cost it would take if they built a new one.

To address the issue, the COWD will provide additional lines, but Young asked COWD’s clients to be more patient as it requires a lot of process.

Earlier Wednesday, Young and another COWD high-ranking official attended the “Meet the Press” media forum of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club and also explained the causes of the water supply problem in this city for the past week.

Young said there was a waterline in the Barangay Puerto area that was hit by a contractor of a government project, which caused water interruption in the barangays of Bugo and Gusa.

The COWD’s water supplier, Cagayan de Oro Bulk Water Incorporated (COBI), also experienced a technical problem on their plant site starting on April 13 and on the following days, which the water flow has been slowed down.

COBI supplies 80,000 cubic meters of water here per day, of which 60,000 come from Barangay Carmen to Opol town in Misamis Oriental and 20,000 come from the eastern part of the city. But the problem has been solved now, Young said.

The COWD has already coordinated with the Department of Public Works and Highways to avoid any damage to the water lines with the agency’s ongoing projects.

The said office also asked its water supplier to come up with a backup plan just in case there was a technical problem to avoid water interruptions.

Councilor Romeo Calizo, chairman of the city council’s committee on public utilities, made a special report on Monday, April 17, expressing the problem with the water supply raised by the residents of this city.

The city council wanted the top officials of the COWD present at the next session as they wanted to determine the real situation of the water supply in Cagayan de Oro.

Young said he still had not received any communication from the city council, but he is very willing to attend the next session to answer the queries of the members of the council.

(MT)