The Baguio Water District (BWD) has revealed its plan to establish at least 30 more deep wells within the next 3 years to augment the city’s water supply amid growing demand.
Each well is projected to cost a minimum of P6 million per well, and can go up to P10 million a well, coming to a roughly P240 to P300 million investment for the next three years, according to BWD General Manager Salvador Royeca.
Funding for the wells can be sourced in the future from generated city revenue, or development loans from institutions and banks, Royeca said, with the initial effort bankrolled in part by the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).
To start with, the BWD has already begun drilling efforts on a handful of the 10 wells that are slated to go up this year, which are projected to yield 140 gallons a minute once established, averaging 760 cubic meters of water a day and adding an estimated 8,000 cubic meters in total to the BWD’s water supply.
According to Royeca, nearly 90 percent of the city’s current water supplies are sourced from only 68 state-run deep wells, as well as rainwater catchment basins and facilities in the city, while the remaining 10 percent is drawn from private drilling efforts and small-scale water harvesting operations.
However, Royeca added that out of at least 500 recorded private deep wells in the city, a measly four percent are found to have permits, leaving the remaining 96 percent illegal on the grounds of lacking paperwork.
Only 210 water companies are permitted to tap into the city’s water table, but according to Royeca, there are many unregulated private wells operating in the city. While there is no comprehensive list of said unregulated wells, both Royeca and Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong have said that numerous complaints have arrived at their desks regarding these wells.
Royeca also said that the continued proliferation of unregulated private deep wells indicate that there is more water to be tapped into.
With the growing demand for water, the BWD is looking for more sources of water that can be tapped and potentially the boring of more wells. But the city must first meet with the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) to request for intensified regulation and monitoring to ensure that the water table is not over-exploited and drained dry.
