Metro Manila households face daily water supply cut

Starting Wednesday, more than half a million households within the concession area of water distributor Maynilad Water Services Inc. will have to endure service interruptions of as long as 11 hours as the water level of Angat Dam continues to drop amid the El Niño weather phenomenon.

On Monday, Maynilad water supply operations head Ronald Padua explained that around 591,000 customers in Caloocan, Navotas, Malabon, Valenzuela, Manila, and Quezon cities will have their supply cut from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m.

However, this will be extended to 6 a.m. in some areas in Caloocan, Malabon, and Quezon City due to their distance from Angat Dam.

“We have limited the implementation of the water service interruption to nighttime so that it won’t be much of an inconvenience to our customers,” Padua said, and assured the public that services would resume “on time.”

He could not give an estimate of how long the service interruptions would last, saying that this would largely depend on rainfall in the Ipo watershed.

This comes after the elevation in Angat Dam on Monday morning further dipped to 179.26 meters from 179.99 m on Saturday, which is already below the 180-m minimum operating level at which water services are available 24/7.

Angat currently supplies 98 percent of potable water in Metro Manila through the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS).

Water from Angat — estimated at 4,000 million liters per day (MLD), or equivalent to around 1,600 Olympic-sized swimming pools — flows to the La Mesa and Ipo dams to help deliver raw water to Maynilad’s and Manila Water Co. Inc.’s treatment plants.

Maynilad gets the majority of Angat’s allocation at 2,600 MLD given its bigger customer base at 9.5 million, compared with Manila Water’s 7.6 million.