Celso meets power, water stakeholders
Mayor Celso Lobregat Tuesday meets with representatives from different agencies to discuss about the cloud seeding operations set to start in Zamboanga City this week. (JOEY BAUTISTA)
To ensure that measures to mitigate the aggravating effects of the dry spell are implemented, Mayor Celso Lobregat yesterday met anew with the city’s power and water stakeholders in City Hall.
This, as the Department of Agriculture, through Lobregat’s request, is set to start in Zamboanga City, several rounds of cloud seeding operations aimed to boost rainfall and to increase water level at the reservoir, this week.
In his opening statement, Mayor Lobregat made it clear that the current situations— rotating blackouts and water rationing— are not exclusive for Zamboanga City alone. “Most parts of the country are experiencing similar dilemma; water sources for energy are drying up due to the dry spell, so does our surface or deep well water,” he stressed.
In the meeting, the power sector was represented by top officials of the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (Zamcelco), the National Power Corporation (Napocor), which is responsible for production/generation of electric power, and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), a private company that operates and maintains transmission networks throughout the country.
They maintained that the power supply in Mindanao, not only in Zamboanga City, has worsened because the hydro electric power plants, Agus and Pulangui plants, have reduced their capability due to very low water in flow to the reservoir. Thus, rotating blackouts had to be imposed Mindanao-wide.
Similarly, the Zamboanga City Water District officials said the water supply of its two reservoirs at its Pasonanca Water Treatment Plan has also receded, prompting the utility to impose the water rationing scheme for a month now.
As this developed, Lobregat announced that the Department of Agriculture (DA) has allocated the amount of P2.7 million for cloud seeding (it hopes to induce rain) in the Zamboanga Peninsula area. However, he said the cloud seeding can only be conducted when there are clouds. Depending on the amount of clouds, the budget could make at least 30 cloud seeding activities for at least one month.
Cloud seeding, a form of weather modification, is the attempt to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds, by dispersing substances such as salt into the air. The intent is to induce rain to mitigate the dry spell brought about by the so-called El Niño phenomenon, a type of abnormal warming of the surface ocean waters in the eastern tropical part of the pacific that is also known as the southern oscillation.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) had said that if the abnormal weather condition continues, it could be very alarming as it would result in severe power and water shortage in the country. (Vic Larato)