Wakeboarding park in Angeles City ordered probed over water shortage

ANGELES CITY, Philippines – Reelected Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan yesterday ordered an investigation of a wakeboarding facility in Barangay Margot which hosted an international event in November following complaints that the underground water source of another village has dried up.

“I am finding out whether my office had somehow overlooked that facility. I was invited to an international event being hosted there last year and I was surprised the facility existed there,” Pamintuan.

The mayor was referring to the Deca Clark Cable Park (Deca Clark) which started operations last December.

Pamintuan said residents of Barangay Sapang Bato complained that since the park was constructed, the local water firm limited their water supply to only two hours per day.

“I was told that the park’s wakeboarding lake was filled with rainwater, but this was unlikely,” the mayor said, hinting that the lake’s water was pumped from underground.

Canadian Mike Hudson, general manager of Deca Clark, said that the wakeboarding lake was merely a feature of a 130-hectare housing subdivision, even as he insisted that the park’s lake was filled with rainwater, and not from the local aquifer.

“It took about two years to fill in that lake, and last year was propitious because it was rainy in Angeles,” he said.

Hudson admitted that a water pump is used to replenish water that evaporates from the lake at the rate of about 500 gallons per day during dry weather.

“But that is much less than the thousands upon thousands of gallons needed to water daily the vast golf courses (in the Angeles area),” he said.

Hudson said all requirements, including clearances and permits from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, were obtained in time for the opening of the facility.