NGO asks GMA to create Cebu Water Authority

Soil and Water Conservation Foundation, a non-government organization, presented a proposal in yesterday's regular session of the Provincial Board asking President Arroyo to create the Cebu Water Resources Management Authority through an Executive Order.

SWCF chairman and president Jose Gapas reported to the PB the status of water supply in the province as input of the proposed ordinance creating the Cebu Provincial Water Resources Authority.

Gapas said that there is a need for more and steady water supply to support faster local development. "In reality, our problem is more than just steady water supply. Our bigger problem is that Cebu is drying up very fast. Cebu is suffocating due to lack of water. It is, and I hate to say this but Cebu is dying as an ecosystem," Gapas said.

Gapas cited a study that within the last 40 years, river systems crossing through Cebu City have dried up. These are Lahug, Buhisan, Guadalupe and Butuanon rivers.

In 1969, Professor Wilhelm Browell, then teaching at the University of San Carlos, made the first study of landward intrusion of seawater. He found in 1969 that the landward intrusion of seawater was less than a kilometer from the shoreline. Now the landward intrusion of seawater is more than four kilometers from the shoreline.

Saying that these trends are continuing and intensifying, Gapas said that it is reasonable to project that within the next 40 years, or between now and the year 2046, all the rivers in Cebu shall have dried up. The water table shall have sunk to more than 1,000 feet and the landward intrusion of seawater shall have reached more than eight kilometers from the shoreline, he said.

Gapas said that the goal and main purpose of the executive order is to stop and reverse the drying up of Cebu.

In the draft EO, Gapas mentioned of the construction of gabions and check dams properly distanced in all waterways in the uplands. The same shall be constructed in the dried up river systems. It can be implemented with proper supervision by local people.

"If we can have the mandate and authority to implement and put in place the technology as described in the proposed executive order, it will harvest at least 1,000 mm of the 1,700 mm yearly rainfall and allow it to percolate and stored for our use in the water table," Gapas said.

The draft EO will devolve the mandate and authority of the National Water Resources Board to a Cebu Water Resources Management Authority.

The CWRMA will have an organizational set-up and a fund scheme to be able to support itself and implement its mandate as authorized and described in the EO.

The Provincial Board has pending proposed ordinance creating the Provincial Water Resource Authority. Board member Victor Maambong who sponsored the proposed ordinance said that the input of Gapas will be incorporated therein, although he and the rest of the board members assured Gapas of further study of the draft EO and to take appropriate actions. - Gregg M. Rubio/MEEV