The continuing saga of the Tamugan River row between Aboitiz’s Hedcor Inc and the Davao City Water District (DCWD) has the former calling a press conference to appeal to DCWD to pave the way for joint development of the area.
This river row sparked from Hedcor’s plans to setup a Hydro Electric Power plant in the area. DCWD blocked the plans by claiming prior approved rights over the river. The city mayor and city council tried to mediate but DCWD just wouldn’t budge saying that a hydro electric plant in the river would stem the flow of water to the area. Mayor Duterte has called for the courts to settle the dispute as mediation bogged down.
Davao City Councilor Peter Lavina has previously stated that DCWD has a long history of sitting on projects and not implementing them. Most importantly of which is their rights to the Tamugan river water supply which had been granted over ten years ago, yet no development on their part was undertaken to tap it to supply water to the city.
About a decade ago, the water utility firm was also a recipient of fund support from foreign aid agencies on the sewerage system for the city. Nothing, unfortunately, came out of it. The same can be said of its plans for the Tamugan River as source of surface water. The National Water Resource Board granted it permit ten years ago, but nothing has been done about it. [source]
Hedcor cited that there are already successful cases of joint uses of bodies of water as a water resource and for hydro electric power generation. These are Angat Hydro Power Plant in Norzagaray, Bulacan, and the Magat Hydroelectric Power Plant in Ramon, Isabela province.
DCWD meanwhile countered that they are just waiting for the judgement of the National Water Resources Board on whether or not to allow the Hedcor project to push through at the Tamugan River.
The Tamugan hydro project will supply power to the Mindanao grid, given the current outlook of power in Mindanao, you’d see that supply will soon be outstripped by demand. This shows that the Tamugan project is something of a necessity in order to maintain the supply of power to the island. Aboitiz has already started making the rounds in the island of Mindanao pointing out the impending energy crisis. It has also been reported recently in the news that Davao City had one of the highest registration of new businesses in the Philippines for 2008, meaning that there is a concrete need for stable power in the region.
[source]
Category: Hydro, Aboitiz
