Still under repair Dry taps for parts of CDO till New Year

CAGAYAN DE ORO Some Kagay-anos will be spending the New Year's Day without tap water after the Cagayan de Oro Water District (COWD) announced that it is still in the process of repairing and cleaning wells damaged by Tropical Storm Vinta which hit the city three days before Christmas.

Ladelle Sagrado, COWD spokesperson, however, said water supply has improved as of Thursday, December 28, with only 38 percent of its facilities still offline, down from about 56 percent last December 22.

Sagrado said two production wells were commissioned back on Wednesday, December 27 and said the COWD has now restored a total of five wells, including the three wells, which were put back to operation last December 23.

She said water is starting to be available in some parts of barangays Nazareth, Tibasak in Macasadig, and also some parts of the city proper.

Sagrado, however, admitted that water supply is still intermittent and "very low in pressure". She said getting water supply back to normal is even more difficult as some people intentionally cut their service lines, thus, building up or increasing pressure would be a challenge. Sagrado said some connection lines in barangays Consolacion and Macabalan were cut by the residents themselves.

In Consolacion for instance, barangay authorities could not stop some residents from breaking open water pipes to clean their houses.

"It is understandable but the effect is, it will be harder to bring back water to households immediately, because pressure will get affected," she said.

Asked if water supply will be restored before New Year's day, Sagrado asked the public to "pray", saying, the COWD is doing its best.

"Many other agencies are helping out too. Our plea to the public is to not make it difficult to build pressure by not damaging the service connections so that when all the facilities will be restored, it will be easier to build pressure," she added.

Meanwhile, Misamis Oriental Vice Governor Joey Pelaez weighed in on the water scarcity and hit authorities for "poor planing and shortsightedness".

The flood that hit Cagayan de Oro will happen again and again as experienced in the recent past, Pelaez said. “This is now our new normal unfortunately due to man-made environmental destruction. I hope that by this experience, lessons are learned and contingencies are in place for the next flood in case it happens again," Pelaez said. SS-CDO