An outburst in 2011 upon seeing news reports of people who had drowned when the dams released tons of water all of a sudden
Dams have been releasing tons of water all at once since 2011, inundating nearby towns and drowning residents: See blog post dated Sept. 30, 2011 written in an outburst upon seeing news reports of people who had drowned after the dams dumped waters into their towns. (embedded below, with the link pasted here).
(Thereafter, protocols were instituted directing the incremental release of waters from the dams. But apparently, the protocols were not implemented this year, officials were sleeping on the job – when the President sleeps, the subordinates follow.) See post at: https://marichulambino.com/2011/09/30/drowning/
Replace the names of provinces with Cagayan province, Rizal province, and Marikina City. Photo below of Cagayan Valley towns inundated Nov. 15, 2020, rightclicked from Manila Bulletin
Drowning
(written and posted 2011, Sept. 30)
Posted 9-11-2011: “Why are dams located near thickly populated areas ( Norzagaray, Angat, San Rafael, Bustos, Baliuag, Pulilan and Plaridel and Calumpit in Bulacan; San Manuel, San Nicolas, Tayug, Asingan, Sta. Maria, Villasis, Rosales, Alcala, Bayambang and Bautista in Pangasinan)? Then, when the dam owners have to release the waters to prepare for a storm and inundate entire villages, the local residents are blamed for getting drowned. The children and old folks who get killed from the rampaging waters get blamed for dying.
“Because the dam owners had already released 3-5 days’ notice – they are justified. As long as they release whatever kind of notices, they are “legally” covered under “protocols”. “We will flood your entire barangay whether or not you are there because we already gave notices.”
“Does that even make sense to anyone?
“And typhoon season is known to everybody – why can’t the release of thousands of tons of water be calibrated? Throughout the year, or over several months before the rains. Why are those waters released all of a sudden in one day such that the sheer force of the raging waters cause an apocalypse in the locality?
“Why does drowning people make sense just because formalities of notices were made?”
From inq.net: “The San Roque Dam in San Manuel town in Pangasinan will start spilling water into the Agno River at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19, an official of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) said. “Valeriano Barro, Napocor flood operations manager, said one of the dam’s six spillway gates will be opened at 0.5 meter high. ” “This is just a preemptive release,” said Barro by telephone. “At noon Monday, the dam’s water elevation was 278.56 meters above sea level (masl), just 1.44 meters below its critical level of 280 masl. The dam has a maximum level of 290 masl.
“Barro said water has been flowing into the dam at a rate of 970 cubic meters per second (cms). One cubic meter per second is equivalent to 1,000 liters or five drums of water. “Aside from runoff water from the Cordillera mountains, water flowing into the dam also comes from the Binga Dam in the river’s upstream. “On Monday noon, Binga had one spillway gate open at a meter high. “Water released by the San Roque Dam flows to the the Agno River’s downstream, which traverses 19 towns and cities before draining to the Lingayen Gulf.”
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blog admin’s notes: The 19 towns that would be affected are: San Nicolas, San Manuel, Asingan, Tayug, Santa Maria, Balungao, Rosales, Villasis, Santo Tomas, Alcala, Bautista, Bayambang, San Carlos City, Urbiztondo, Mangatarem, Aguilar, Bugallon, Labrador and Lingayen. Tne Napocor has not released any information on any estimate of the amount of water that would be dumped, nor how long the spillway gates would remain open to continuously release water. The Regional Disaster Council has not issued any report, nor any statement whether any preparations is necessary to avoid any damage.
