GMA inaugurates P448-M Ecija dam

PALAYAN CITY – President Arroyo will lead today the inauguration of the P448-million modernized and state-of-the-art dam in this provincial capital coinciding with the 112th anniversary of the “Unang Sigaw ng Nueva Ecija (First Cry of Nueva Ecija).”

Carlos Salazar, administrator of the National Irrigation Administration, told The STAR that the President, along with Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, will lead in the opening of the newly rehabilitated Pampanga-Bongabon River Irrigation System, also known as the Atate Dam, in Barangay Atate here.

The President will also hold a Cabinet meeting here after gracing the anniversary rites for Nueva Ecija Day. She will be welcomed here by Gov. Aurelio Umali and other local officials.

Salazar said the rehabilitation of the PBRIS has been fully completed with the installation of electro-mechanically operated gate-lifting mechanism, additional intake, construction of a 10.38-km. concrete canal lining along the PBRIS main canal and installation of new slide gates for 10 main canal structures and turn-outs.

He said that with the rehab project, the operations of the dam with regard to gating have graduated from the purely manual to electric-driven for sluice and intake gates.

The Atate Dam forms part of a contract package U1 of the P6.7-billion Phase 1 of the irrigation component of the Casecnan Multi-purpose Irrigation and Power Project. The irrigation component, which started in 1998, involves construction of a 29-km. super diversion canal and repair and rehab of existing dams and enlargement of major canals.

Engr. Alex Coloma, NIA-Casecnan assistant project manager, said that the Atate Dam rehab, whose construction was started by the China International Water & Electric Corp. (CIWEC), costs P448.15 million.

Coloma said the dam is good as new. “The Atate Dam may have been rehabilitated but in effect, we have a brand-new dam because the structures have been thoroughly strengthened and improved. Gone are the old and deteriorated structures,” he said.

Coloma said the project will benefit 19,151 farmers covering 25,881 hectares of agricultural lands in 105 barangays in Cabanatuan City and the municipalities of Aliaga, Gen. Natividad, Jaen, Peñaranda, San Antonio, San Leonardo, Sta. Rosa and Zaragoza.