Total Involvement Needed to Protect Watershed and Ground Water

Future students of our environment´s history would appreciate the Bukidnon Provincial Board´s vocal objections to the creation of a Cagayan de Oro River Basin Development Authority for demonstrating how protecting the watershed and ground water resources calls for everyone´s total involvement.

While the legislators objections to the provisions of the bill filed by Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (2nd District, Cagayan de Oro) focus on the inclusion of the water resources and territorial boundaries of the province of Bukidnon into the proposed Cagayan de Oro River Basin Development Authority under House Bill No. 5908, they serve to illustrate that protecting a certain portion of the environment (in this case the Cagayan River) should involve all people involved in the entire river system of which it is but a part of.

In his explanatory note, Rodriguez cites the need for more comprehensive flood controls and drainage along the Cagayan River, its tributaries and natural waterways, following the deadly flash floods of January 2009 which displaced over 69,000 people comprising nearly 13,000 families. The proposed Cagayan River Basin Development Authority would oversee the preservation, protection, and development of the waterways flowing into it.

But Bukidnon Gov. Jose Ma. Zubiri has objected to the bill since it would "transfer control over the water resources and areas of Bukidnon" to another entity. The Cagayan River has its headwaters in the Kalatungan Mountain Range of Bukidnon.

However, without going into the nitty gritty of the complexities of establishing territorial boundaries of a river system, these objections have illustrated how protecting the watershed of the Cagayan River and controlling its floods is a trans-territorial issue and thus all of its stakeholders along its entire course from its headwaters, down to its tributaries and to its outlet in Macajalar Bay should be involved in its management since everyone would be affected in case something happens somewhere within its length.

For instance, the local officials of Bukidnon cannot afford to be blasé about this matter since the floodwaters that inundated Cagayan de Oro last January originated from the Bubunawan and Tumalaong rivers, whose headwaters are in the political jurisdiction of Bukidnon. In particular, the waters that flooded Cagayan de Oro on January 3, 2009 came from the Baungon-Kitanglad area.

Similarly, the bioethanol plant that is proposed to be situated in the hinterland barangays of Bayanga and Mambuaya should not be the sole concern of the residents of these two barangays but everyone who depends on potable water abstracted from surface water through the bulk water supply project and the ground water from Cagayan de Oro´s aquifers since all these are part and parcel of the same water cycle through which the same water circulates.

It matters not if the project proponent can or cannot guarantee ´zero waste´ technology which they claim would not pollute the water cycle originating in the Monigue River and ending in Cagayan de Oro´s aquifers. Since this is an industrial plant, the probability of accident is always present, as illustrated by the tragic experiences of the people in Bhopal, India and Chernobyl, Ukraine whose plants have even better safeguards that the proposed bioethanol plant.

It takes just one single accident, involving the toxic effluents that the proposed bioethanol plant would produce as a by-product of its operations, and we could have cyanide coming out of our tap water.

Since both the ground water sourced from our aquifers by the production wells of the Cagayan de Oro City Water District and thousand of other, mostly unregistered deep wells, as well as the surface water abstracted by the bulk water supplier are both part of the same water cycle through which the effluents of the proposed bioethanol plant would spill to in case of an accident, both are at high risk in case that happens, however low the probability of such an accident ever happening.

Given this possibility, it doesn´t look like that´s a probability even the most callous person can live with for the rest of his life. The only way to avoid such an accident ever happening is to altogether banish the source of such a probability and move that bioethanol plant somewhere else where it won´t pose a threat to our potable drinking water supply.