This dam project will soon be an agro-ecotourism paradise

With the expected completion this month of the irrigation component of the Can-asujan Dam in Carcar, Cebu City, irrigation and local officials are now holding discussions with agriculture, environment and tourism heads in the city on how to convert the facility into an agro-ecotourism paradise to provide the residents of the mountainous barangays with additional income from agriculture and tourism.

The P585-million Can-asujan Small Reservoir Irrigation Project, funded by the Asian Development Bank, is located 40 kilometers away from Cebu City providing water to gravity-fed irrigation service area of 782 hectares (of rice and vegetable lands and resettlement area) . It also supplies Cebu City with potable water for its burgeoning population.

Prior to the dam’s construction in 2003, farmers were earning only P20,000 per crop for rice and P75,803 for vegetables. But with the dam’s operation, they are now reaping P35,200 for rice and P139,904 for vegetables, according to Carcar Mayor Patrick Barcenas.

Barcenas and Vice Mayor Roger Montesclaro led local barangay officials in discussing with Manila-based newsmen, who were toured to the ADB-funded projects in Cebu City recently, the benefits of the small reservoir for the residents of the hilly slopes by improving their farm productivity and providing other income options for them in the near future.

But foremost among their concerns is ensuring the dam’s sustainability by protecting and reforesting the watershed – its main source of water for now and future generations.

"We have obtained a P26-million budget from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for watershed management, particularly in replanting and conducting livelihood activities in the upstream, to preserve the area for illegal cutting," Barcenas said.

The dam’s main source of water is the Can-asujan River, and Pondol River is the supplementary source. A 25-meter hard landfill dam and spillway were built in a narrow, steep-sided valley section of the Can-asujan River around seven km from the national highway going uphill. The reservoir has a capacity to impound 2.45 million cubic meters of water with approximately 32.85 hectares of land submerged but the residents in submerged areas were relocated to upper portions.

 "Without adding new facilities to the area, people will visit us. What more if we put amenities for boating, rafting, small lodges and a lot of outdoor activities for local and foreign tourists to come here," said Barcenas as he visualized its conversion into ecotourism within five years..

The ADB also took the newsmen to Lilo-an, a second-class municipality north of Cebu City,   where it gave a grant of $50,000 for the establishment of a "decentralized" waste water treatment facility at the public market, upon the persistence of DENR’s German consultant Dr. Andreas Köenig. The facility came with two decent public toilets.

The facility is able to treat waste water from the public market – that used to be dumped at the river which mixed with sea water during high tides thereby affecting the shorelines of Cebu City – and surrounding houses and commercial establishments.

The waste water treatment facility – the first of its kind to be funded by ADB – showcases what needs to be done in other beach resorts of the country whose fragile ecosystems are under constant pressure from overpopulation and pollution. These are the beaches of Boracay (which suffers from unregulated dumping of coliform/bacteria), Bohol, Surigao, Camiguin and others north and south of Metro Manila.

At Lilo-an, market vendors were organized into a cooperative, which came up with revenue-generating measures to fund the maintenance and ensure the sustainability of the facility. Such schemes are P5-per-day tariff from vendors for use of the toilets and very soon even from the surrounding residential and commercial establishments. The vendors have also proposed to Lilo-an Mayor Dr. Maria B. Sevilla that treated water be recycled to be used in flashing the toilets, cleaning the market and watering gardens.