Dads to find solutions to Oro’s flooding woes
VICE Mayor Raineir Joaquin V. Uy on Monday challenged the 18th City Council to find solutions to the city’s flooding problem.
This, after Councilor Teodulfo Lao in his special report during the 89th regular session expressed concern over the urban flooding being experienced in the city.
He cited that the weather advisory of the CDRRMD on July 10, 2018 at 2:00 p.m. did not state that there would be a storm or heavy rain. He said it just announced that there will be cloudy to light rains that will be
experienced in some areas which will result in flooding from Lapasan to Bugo. He said, what happened was the stretch of CM Recto Lapasan up to Corrales Avenue was flooded, making the forecast inaccurate.
These incidents are called as urban flooding, Lao said.
“The urban flooding we experienced in the past and at present is inevitable and these scenarios are happening in big cities of the country and even in the entire world,” he cited.
According to experts and scholars this is due to climate change and precisely because layers of the atmosphere have been damaged, which causes greenhouse effect, Lao said.
The councilor said flooding can be minimized if the city has a well-planned drainage system. He informed that the elevated areas in the city, even uptown is experiencing flooding even during ordinary rains due to the obvious poor drainage system, such that the water instead of going to the canal makes its way to the highway.
MASTERPLAN
During the 15th City Council, Lao said he called on the city government to come up with a master drainage plan to guide new applications of subdivisions, town houses, relocations and economic growing areas where they will construct drainage systems that will be distributed to major canals in the city to avoid overflow of water. However, he said it was not acted upon until today.
The councilor said the committee on public utilities, which he chairs held a meeting to tackle the traffic problem at the Kauswagan national highway and invited the DPWH to know the exact date of completion of the drainage project in the area.
Lao recalled that during the discussion, a native of Kauswagan said that if they were consulted they would have suggested to the DPWH that the best and effective way to discharge water to prevent flooding at the national highway is thru an existing drainage system, the Kauswagan canal. He said the canal is wide and will directly discharge water to the Macajalar Bay, compared to Sapang Creek where the construction is very costly and flow of water is too long and narrow with so many turns that delay the discharge of water to the Macajalar Bay.
The councilor said this is the same problem with the ongoing construction of the drainage system at Arcadia Valenzuela in Agora, Lapasan wherein water is discharged at the Bitan-ag Creek when the cause of flooding is the overflowing of water at Bitan-ag Creek itself.
“How could we solve the problem when the cause of the problem is still the same problematic canal?”Lao questioned.
The matter was referred to the Committee of the Whole headed by the vice mayor. (EF)