Updated November 3, 2019, 3:47 PM By Malu Manar
KIDAPAWAN CITY (Nov 3) — The Energy
Development Corporation (EDC), the country’s sole producer of geothermal
energy, has dispelled claims their geothermal production in Mount Apo caused
the recent earthquakes here, or could trigger volcanic eruption.
In a press statement issued to media
on Sunday, Romy Kee, head of the EDC’s Mount Apo Geothermal Project (MAGP)
facility, has quoted studies made by scientists that no man-made activity can
cause a volcanic eruption.
“Only a change in chemistry,
pressure and temperature can cause a volcanic eruption,” Kee explained.
Kee added that seismicity in each
EDC geothermal site, including MAGP, is being monitored by seismic instruments
that they have installed, in partnership with a network of monitoring
instruments of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology
(Phivolcs), since the country is prone to earthquakes.
“The recent movements in Mindanao
all have epicenters south of Kidapawan City and none are within our project
site. To date, we have not affected the seismicity of the area two decades
since we have started operating MAGP,” he said.
Phivolcs director Renato Solidum has
already confirmed in his media interviews that the series of tremors that hit
the area, as well as other parts of Mindanao since October 16, was caused by
the Cotabato fault system and were tectonic in origin.
Netizens posted on their Facebook
accounts photos of sulfur coming out from land cracks, creeks, and streams.
A certain Marilyn, an FB user,
showed photos of a crack in the soil in Barangay Kayaga, Kabacan, and another
netizen reported on his wall sulfur coming out from a river in Barangay Luayon
in Makilala.
Datu Tungko Saikol of the
Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in
Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), said the sulfur was a mineral that usually comes out
from the depth of the soil when there is an activity, like an earthquake.
Experts called the process as
“liquefaction”, he said.
“This is just a normal thing. There
is no cause for alarm,” he stressed.
Saikol said the EDC has not violated
any environmental law or orders from the government since its operations that
started, more than two decades ago.
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