Proposed power firm vows watershed restoration

By Bong S. Sarmiento

Thursday, May 24, 2012

THE proposed Mindanao Power Corp. (MPC) will allocate P200 million yearly to restore watersheds in the island, as Mindanao's hydropower plants' reliability largely dependent on the environment, Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Secretary Luwalhati R. Antonino vowed.

Antonino, chair of MinDA, stressed that the reliability of hydropower plants in Mindanao, which supply more than half of the island's power needs, had been affected by the critical condition of the watersheds.

"The watershed condition in Mindanao is very alarming. The island-region's forest cover now only stands at 21 percent," Antonino said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

Insufficient electric supply, reportedly due to generation deficiency of power plants, has beset parts of Mindanao in the past few months and is projected to linger in the coming years unless no new power plants will be constructed due to growing demand.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, the private operator of the country’s power transmission network, put the supply deficiency in Mindanao at 343 megawatts on Wednesday.

It placed Mindanao's system capacity at 910 megawatts (MW) with the demand peaking at 1,253 MW.

To address the power woes in the island, MinDA pushed the creation of MPC, a government-owned and controlled corporation that will oversee the operations of the Agus and Pulangi hydropower plants.

Once realized, the MPC would allocate annually P200 million for the restoration and management of Mindanao's watersheds, especially in the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Bukidnon where the Agus and Pulangi hydropower plants are located, Antonino said.

"The Agus and Pulangi hydro plants are our [Mindanao] crown jewels," she said, adding that Mindanao's relatively cheaper power makes it more advantageous for investors to locate in the region.

According to her, it is best for the Agus and Pulangi hydropower plants to be run by Mindanawons, under the proposed government-owned power company.

She noted that “major environmental effort could not be fully expected if hydropower plants are privatized, stressing that we can't compel a private entity to care for our watersheds.”

Antonino said that Mindanao is host to eight major river basins in the country, the largest of which are the Agusan and Pulangi river basins.
Within these river basins are 262 watersheds -- with Agusan and Pulangi also the largest -- that are drained by nine major and 20 secondary rivers.

To date, Antonino said that deforestation and unsustainable agriculture practices has resulted in massive soil erosion.

"The end result is a heavily silted Pulangi River and Lanao Lake," she said, pointing out that siltation of dams leads to significant reduction in power generation capacity of hydropower plants.

This problem has long been neglected, Antonino said, adding that the proposed power company is hoped to take care of not just the regular maintenance of the hydropower plants, but also the restoration of its surrounding watersheds.

She said they are gearing to implement a program on watershed management called “Mindanao Nurturing Our Waters” (MindaNOW) that will be launched early next month as part of environmental conservation measures in the island.

MindaNOW is a flagship program of MinDA in partnership with key government agencies, private sector and non-government organizations.

"It is anchored on a sustainable development framework that aims to enhance an enabling environment towards achieving sustainable economic development while maintaining ecological integrity," Antonino said.

She said that the pursuit of economic development in Mindanao must not come at the expense of the environment.

The island-region still has to catch up with the national greening program, which targets to plant 1.5-billion trees covering about 1.5-million hectares nationwide until 2016.

Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on May 24, 2012.    source