Postpone Nueva Ecija dam rehab, farmers urge

CABANATUAN CITY — Some 18,000 farmers tilling 36,000 hectares of agricultural lands in Central Luzon stand to lose P2.1 billion in potential income if the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) pushes through with the scheduled rehabilitation of the Atate Dam in Palayan City in December, a top official of the agency said.

Engineer Antonio Nangel, operations manager of the NIA’s Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation Systems (UPRIIS), said the farmers want the rehabilitation deferred to allow them to plant during the dry cropping season next year.

Nangel said they would ask NIA-Casecnan, which is in charge of the Casecnan Dam’s irrigation component, to adjust its schedule.

NIA-Casecnan, headed by engineer Serafin Palteng, is set to rehabilitate the Atate Dam, including the repair of intake structures like check gates, in December to augment water in the Pampanga-Bongabon River.

The Atate Dam feeds from the Pantabangan Dam which, in turn, is augmented by the Casecnan Dam through a 26-kilometer underground tunnel.

If the rehabilitation pushes through in December, Nangel said 18,000 farmers in NIA Districts 3 and 4 covering Gapan City, San Miguel and San Ildefonso, both in Bulacan, and Candaba, Pampanga will not be able to plant their crops.

Nangel said this would mean a production loss of 120 cavans per hectare, or a staggering P2.1 billion for the 36,000 hectares of farmlands to be affected.

He said the NIA-UPRIIS itself stands to lose P63 million in irrigation service fees and that its 272 employees would have nothing to do during the rehabilitation period.

"Malaking lugi ito sa farmers (This would be a big loss to the farmers)," Nangel said, adding that they have yet to recover from the massive devastation wreaked by the spate of typhoons last November.

To resolve the issue, Nangel said they have arranged a meeting with NIA-Casecnan officials tomorrow.

"If, for example, laborers are to work eight hours a day during the rehab, they might think of making it 14 hours to fast-track its completion," he said.