MANILA, Philippines - The National Power Corp. (Napocor) committed yesterday to come up with an updated protocol on the release of water from dams as well as an early warning system for communities in the path of surging waters following an ultimatum from the Senate and the Department of Energy.
Napocor president Froilan Tampinco made the commitment at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Climate Change looking into the devastation caused by raging waters released from dams on a large swath of Luzon, particularly Pangasinan, at the height of typhoon “Pepeng.” The deluge reportedly covered at least 80 percent of Pangasinan.
In the same hearing, Tampinco clarified that the engineers in charge of the San Roque Dam were following protocol when they opened the spill gates of the facility, contrary to the pronouncement of its chief hydrologist Russel Rigor that there was none.
Upon questioning by the senators on Wednesday, Rigor testified that the decision to release water from the dam would depend on the discretion of the engineers and not based on a set of rules.
Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes gave Tampinco until Monday to submit a report on whether its officials and engineers could be held criminally and administratively liable for ordering the release of water from the San Roque Dam.
Committee chair Sen. Loren Legarda asked if the new protocol could be finished by today but Tampinco said they could only come up with it by the end of November.
While working on a new protocol and early warning system, Tampinco said they would no longer follow the old one and instead try to modify “the steps and the trigger levels already in order to preclude what we have experienced recently.”
Pangasinan Gov. Amado Espino Jr. pointed out it was not enough to tell the residents that water would be released. He said affected communities should also be informed of the volume of water to be released so that orderly evacuation could be made if necessary.
Espino, Legarda and Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco said the Napocor should find ways to avoid flooding altogether by finding out whether water could be released gradually during typhoons so that water would not come rushing into the communities.
But it was pointed out in the hearing that the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services does not have a Doppler radar to measure the amount of rainfall.
Who’s to blame?
Alex Palada, division manager of Napocor’s Flood Forecasting and Warning System for Dam Operations, said they did not have any choice but to open the spill gates of San Roque because Pepeng came back with a bigger amount of rain.
Palada also admitted that he had thought it best to release the water at midnight when most people were asleep and safe in their homes and unlikely to venture outside.
“Before Pepeng came in, the elevation of San Roque Dam was 277 meters, so it was not yet at 280 (meters), the criteria for pre-release,” Palada said.
“It was able to hold the first salvo of Pepeng and for the dam to serve as flood control (facility), it must only have 280 to 290 meters of water, equivalent to 140 million cubic meters (of water),” Palada said.
Since the dam could still hold the water and it was no longer raining, Palada said they decided not to release water even if Agno River was already swollen.
“But Pepeng came back and that caused the release. And it was only small, 500 cubic meters per second,” Palada said.
Palada said the release of water is in progress because there are still 100 million cubic meters of water that must be discharged.
However, some quarters were claiming that the dam released 5,000 cubic meters of water per second, thus causing much destruction.
He explained the dam would only be operational at 255 meter water level at the minimum and thus they could not easily decide to release water unless they would know the amount of coming rainfall.
Palada also said the early warning should not come from Napocor. Tampinco also said Pagasa should be the one to give the necessary advisories.
‘Beyond us’
Pagasa Director Prisco Nilo, however, said the agency is not responsible for the control or operations of the dams.
“That is beyond us,” Nilo said.
Susan Espinueva, officer-in-charge of Pagasa’s Hydrometeorology Division, stressed there is a protocol for the release of dam water and that the agency’s part in the protocol is to provide Napocor with weather-related information, such as rainfall forecast.
But Espinueva admitted the information does not include volume of rain, because Pagasa does not have the equipment to measure rain.
Espinueva said Napocor uses Pagasa’s forecast to assess the inflow of water into the dam, based on the actual level of rainfall and the expected rainfall.
Napocor then decides whether gates or spillways should be closed or opened.
Napocor then calls dam operators and gives them instructions as to which gates should be opened and how much water may be released.
“The 280- to 288-meter level is strictly flood control level,” she explained.
Espinueva added that flood control purposes of the dam will be defeated if they automatically start releasing water when the level reaches 280 meters.
“The level may be kept up to 288 meters if there is no rain expected and the downstream areas are already flooded,” she pointed out.
Espinueva said that prior to the release of water during Pepeng, a meeting was held with local people through the provincial governor.
“They were given more than the required four-hour advance warning before water was released,” she said.
Stop finger-pointing
Legarda said the finger-pointing must stop as Espino reiterated that it was only Tommy Valdez, vice president for corporate social responsibility of the San Roque Power Corp., who sent him a text message informing him of the release of water.
Espino and the mayors of affected communities denied receiving any fax message from dam operators.
“There are local radio stations, whistle, megaphones, text and call (that we can use) until the message is relayed (to all concerned),” Legarda said.
Tampinco said even under the current protocol, “the warning is not confined to fax messages, there are also vehicles that move around with mega phones.”
Legarda said apparently the current system was not efficient because many residents were affected by the flooding in Pangasinan.
SRPC’s Valdez said there is a Flood Operation Rule (FOR) for San Roque Dam being followed by Napocor.
The FOR provides the guidelines in managing the flood inflow and outflow of the San Roque Reservoir, as well as the procedures to be followed during a flood situation.
SRPC, which is 50 percent owned by Marubeni and Kansai Electric Co Inc., established the SRMP project in 1997 under a 25-year build-operate-transfer arrangement with Napocor. SRPC owns the power station while Napocor owns the dam and the dam’s related facilities, including the spillway.
“While SRPC has no authority to open or close the spillway of the San Roque dam, we did coordinate closely with flood control experts from Napocor. SRPC personnel carried out diligently the instructions of the Napocor managers on releasing water from the dam,” Valdez said.
“Napocor gave written instructions that were so specific that they included not only the time of the gate openings, but also the specific opening height of each gate to provide the release they required from the dam,” Valdez said.
“Unfortunately, towards the end of the storm the San Roque dam no longer had the capacity to absorb the unprecedented level of rainwater dumped by the typhoon,” the SRPC official added.
More study
Dr. Carlo Arcilla of the University of the Philippines said a careful study should be done to ensure that a new protocol is fool-proof.
“When Pepeng returned, Pagasa could not have predicted the amount of rain falling into that area… Even if the dam did not exist this water would have flowed down. So you know, this is kind of difficult, if you are a dam operator,” Arcilla said.
Arcilla said professors, dam experts, hydrologists and geologists should come together and work out an efficient protocol.
Meanwhile, the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan has expressed its support for the filing of charges against San Roque Dam officials even as it called for the decommissioning of the dam as a long term response to the problem of flooding.
“Both public officials and private operators of the dam must be held accountable for the sudden and devastating release of water which flooded most of Pangasinan in a matter of hours, giving people very little time to be evacuated,” Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes Jr. said. “The latest flooding shows the inherent problem with the dam, that it is not really a flood control system.” with Donnabelle Gatdula