LEGAZPI CITY — The city government here has requested for a technical conference with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) regarding the PHP2.1-billion flood control project that was completed last year after the city experienced huge floods recently.
Mayor Noel E. Rosal, in an interview Monday, said he will ask Secretary Mark Villar on the design of the city’s urban drainage system and request DPWH to inspect the project after the city’s central business district and other low-lying areas went under water after episodes of heavy downpour last December 29 and January 3.
The Php2.1-billion Legazpi City Urban Drainage System was considered as a mega flood control project implemented by the DPWH and funded by the national government. It included the installation of three pumping stations designed to address the perennial flooding problems in the city.
Also part of the project was the rehabilitation and widening of canals in the main thoroughfare which removed the old type culvert canals and replaced it with the new wide box type canals. It also involved the improvement and construction of flood control dikes, drainage system and sea walls.
The three giant pumping stations were installed in the villages of San Roque, Bay-bay and Victory, patterned after a project of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) with a capacity of throwing out three cubic meters of flood waters per second.
Rosal said Legazpi again experienced inundation despite the completion of the flood control project because the major river channels were silted and the drainage canals were clogged by huge volume garbage due to the improper waste disposal of households in the villages.
The three pumping stations were all operational but the problem was the water elevation at the pump flood gates have reached only 0.4 cubic meters while the pumping facilities needed between 1.3 and 1.8 cubic meters of water elevation to start operation, the mayor added, thus the need for DPWH to assess the project. (PNA)
