CITY OF MALOLOS—The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office will put CCTV cameras at the spill-gates of Angat, Ipo and Bustos dams and major rivers of the province.

Gov. Wilhelmino M. Sy-Alvarado said that the provincial government is now consulting with technicians who will put up the CCTV cameras and the monitoring systems to be set up at the operations center of the PDRRMO at the capitol compound here.

“This way, we can actually monitor the release of waters from these dams and its actual flow to the Angat and Santa Maria rivers in the province especially during the typhoon season,” Alvarado said.

The PDRRMO reported Sunday that the spill-gates of Angat, Ipo and Bustos dams are still open as of 8 a.m. Sunday. The three dams started releasing water since Thursday afternoon after the water level at Angat dam reached 214 meters which is 4 meters above the dam’s spilling level of 212 meters.

Raul Agustin, senior operations officer of PDRRMO, said that the three radial gates of Angat dam remains open and has discharged 308 cubic meters per second (cms) of water while Ipo dam has opened its 3 gates and discharged 203 cms of water that flows downwards to the Bustos irrigation dam which has also opened 3 gates and discharged 250 cms of water.

Agustin said the release of water from the dams has no effects on the recently flood-ravaged coastal towns of Calumpit and Hagonoy since the Angat River can still contain the volume of water being discharged from the three dams.

The governor said that existing protocols on the release of water from the dams should be reviewed to avoid the repeat of the severe flooding that hit the coastal towns of Calumpit and Hagonoy recently.

The flooding was said to have been aggravated by the release of waters from the three dams at the height of Typhoons “Pedring” and “Quiel.”

He said that dam engineers should release water from the reservoirs once the water level reaches 206 meters during rainy season. Right now dam officials will not release water unless the spilling level of 210 meters is breached.