The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is allocating P34 million to identify and protect more ground water sources against destructive development projects, particularly mining.
Environment Undersecretary and concurrent Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) Director Mario Luis J. Jacinto told the BusinessMirror that a P34 million fund has been allocated for a two-year water resource-inventory project.
The two-year water resource inventory is part of the regular projects and mandate of the MGB.
The Philippines is richly endowed with freshwater sources. It has 18 major river basins, 412 major rivers and 113 proclaimed watersheds.
Water in rivers near urban areas, however, are already polluted and unsafe even for bathing because of indiscriminate dumping of garbage, mostly from households, and chemical pollutants from agriculture, small-scale mining and other toxic chemicals from factories and other commercial and industrial establishments.
Speaking mostly in Filipino, Jacinto said many of the country’s watersheds are threatened by destructive development projects, particularly mining, underscoring the need to move to identify and protect water sources to boost the country’s water security.
Early this year, former DENR Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez had declared watersheds as “off limits” to destructive development projects and cancelled 75 mineral production sharing agreements (MPSAs) within or near “functional watersheds” to protect the country’s water source and boost the country’s water security, for the present and future generation.
The cancellation order came after Lopez issued an order canceling or suspending at least 28 large-scale mining operations that failed a mining criteria anchored on social, environmental and biodiversity considerations.
The orders and policy declaration by the former DENR chief defines “a watershed is a watershed.”
Jacinto said nevertheless, the DENR-MGB, which regulates mining, including quarrying, is determined to secure watersheds, but will employ more science in determination of what needs to be protected by the government.
“We are more on water resource inventory as part of our mandate related to water resources. Our hydrologists just had their training and we are going to deploy them,” he said.
Scouting for water, he added, will be conducted nationwide by DENR with the 16 MGB regional offices taking the lead.
The water resource inventory, he said, involves scouting watersheds, including underground aquifers in various parts of the country.
“We need to identify and protect our water sources,” Jacinto said, adding that the MGB will move to declare any area identified by the MGB’s hydrologists as possible source of clean, drinking water, will be declared “off limits” to destructive development projects.
“Water is important. If these areas were found to have substantial water, we will protect it,” he said.
A major output of the project, he said, is the development of a map identifying the water. The map, initially with a scale of 1:10,000 will be detailed to include an estimate of the volume of water.
The map, according to MGB chief, will be produced and distributed to local government units (LGUs) and private-sector users. It will be useful in developing facilities for water utilities, including water districts.
“We have the manpower, we have the geologists, we have hydrologists to do this,” Jacinto said.
He said the map will be produced as soon as the DENR-MGB’s field personnel completed the water resource inventory per region.
The map, he said, will be “very useful” to LGUs in crafting their own policies.
“LGUs can use this [the map] whether or not a project should be allowed in an area. It can also be used to support…[and] local water sources which can be developed by water-utility companies or water districts,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said the MGB is strictly against cutting of trees in old growth forests even if they are within the mining tenement or covered by MPSA’s.
“We have a law against cutting of trees in old growth forests. We will not allow cutting of trees there,” he said.