Water Shortage Hits City

MAASIN CITY - Despite denials of water rationing by Maasin Water District General Manager Nestor Geraldo MWD consumers are apparently convinced there is a severe water crisis in the city and that it will get worse because the supply cannot meet the demands.

No less than former MWD GM Gaudencio Alejandria had announced this to the public way back in 2005 when he told the Southern Leyte Times that the Canlited and Capores Springs which are the city’s main source of potable drinking water were drying up and producing less water each day.

He said that the Canlited Spring which used to generate 2400 cubic meters of water daily now only produced 1500 cubic meters. While the Capores Spring which used to produce 1200 cubic meters a day was generating only 700 cubic meters.

Alejandria admitted that even under ideal conditions the water district could only service 1500 households, but that at that time, there were already 3200 connections in the city.

“The situation was so bad that we stopped accepting new applicants two years ago,” he lamented.

He said Maasinhons were also partly to blame for the situation because they used more water a day than consumers in nearby towns. He noted that the average user in other towns used only 100 liters per day while a Maasinhon used 125.

Alejandria told SLT that MWD badly needed the financial support of the city and provincial government for its water expansion program because they couldn’t get any loan from financial institutions since they did not have the financial capability to pay for it.

SLT has been trying to get data from GM Geraldo on the number of water concessionaires the MWD now had but were told he was busy doing field work.

What is certain now is that we have a severe water shortage and our water sources are drying up so we have to look for new ones we can tap. But this will take money that we don’t have because the city and provincial governments have allocated too much of their Internal Revenue Allotments on white elephants like the new public market at the reclamation site. (By ANTHONY KINGS)

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