“Project: Clean Water”

The GreenPeace, an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to the change attitudes and behavior, to protect and conserve the environment to promote peace, launched “Project: Clean Water’, an initiative that aims to catalyze action to protect the fresh water sources here in the Philippines, focusing on the issues of water pollution especially on the surface water scarcity, freshwater sources and the drinking water we consume everyday. It also review the current policy in the country’s framworks for water use, quality control, and management.

Based on the research made by GreeenPeace:

1.       the quality of fresh water sources is steadily declining while the costs of obtaining clean water is rising

2.      although many laws have been enacted to protect water, such as the Clean Water Act, these are among the most blatantly abused environmental laws because of poor enforcement; and

3.      although government agencies monitor water quality, the parameters are severely limited and do not include many toxic substances from new technologies, including some of the most harmful compounds known to humans, such as persistent organic pollutants or POPs; and

4.      declining water quality is compounded by the problem of water scarcity which is now a very palpable threat, making access to clean water more and more difficult.

Based on some reseaches done by the Greenpeace, our country, the Philippines, ranked 2^nd lowest among the countries in the the South East Asia in freshwater availability. This tells that our country had a deficiency in having freshwater that the Filipinos need for everyday living. The experts also predicted that some of our freshwater sources will have freshwater deficit such as river basins in Pampanga and Agno, in Pasig-Laguna and many more. This shortage is due to the climate change happening nowadays and water pollution that our government is having problem on managing and controlling it.

Also said on the given research that even the existing policies and management by the government which was the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has no substantial improvement at all and continuous decline of quality clean freshwater. The DENR acknowledge the 50 or 421 rivers in the country ( 8.42%) are considered  “biologically dead” due to pollution. The government had an agency that monitors the pollutants in water bodies but it still not enough to save those dead rivers because the miss out the toxic compounds happened to affect those water surfaces. Because of lack of budget and equipment that’s why they can’t control the said dilemma.

Sources:

www.philippinestoday.net/index.php?module=article&view=634

www.greenpeace.org/seasia/ph/

Lowell Royce Y. Dagaraga

4IT-B

Pollution Hot Spots.

Reviewed materials from the DENR and the PEM series identified three main sources of pollution: domestic wastewater discharges (also called ‘municipal’), agricultural wastewater, and industrial wastewater.


Domestic Wastewater

Domestic effluents are generated from activities such as bathing, laundry, cleaning, cooking, washing, and other kitchen activities. This contains a large amount of organic waste with suspended solids and coliforms. Calculations made based on available data show that half the organic waste is from the domestic sector

Agricultural Wastewater

Agriculture and livestock activities include the raising or production of hogs, chicken, cattle, and other dairy farming activities, all of which generate high organic wastewater. A number of these farms, including backyard animal farms, have no appropriate wastewater treatment facilities. This is considered as the major source of pollution in rural areas





Industrial Wastewater

Industries that are found to be water-intensive, i.e. food and dairy manufacturing, pulp, paper and paperboard products, and textile products, correspondingly discharge large amounts of wastewater







www.greenpeace.org/seasia/ph/.../the-state-of-water-in-the-phil.pdf
-Aaron Amos

Surface And Groundwater Resources

The Philippines obtains its water supply from different sources. 

These include: rainfall, surface water resources, i.e. rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, and groundwater resources. It has 18 major river basins and 421 principal river basins as defined by the National Water Regulatory Board (NWRB ).
 

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) reports that there are 79 lakes in the country, mostly utilized for fish production. Laguna Lake is the country’s largest lake with a total area of 3,813.2 sq km and is also one of the largest lakes in Southeast Asia. Lake Lanao, the largest lake in Mindanao, is one of the 17 ancient lakes on earth (Environmental Management Bureau, 2006).
 

In terms of groundwater, the country has an extensive groundwater reservoir with an aggregate area of about 50,000 sq km. Data from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) show that several groundwater basins are underlaid by about 100,000 sq km of various rock formation and that these resources are located in:

Northeast Luzon
Central Luzon
Laguna Lake basin
Cavite-Batangas-Laguna basin
Southeast Luzon
Mindoro Island
Negros Island
Northeast Leyte
Ormoc-Kananga basin
Agusan-Davao basin
Occidental Misamis basin
Lanao-Bukidnon-Misamis basin

Data from the Philippines Environment Monitor (PEM) show that while some regions are endowed with high potential source of surface water, others have limited supplies, as shown in the table below.
Water Resources Region	Groundwater Potential	Surface Water Potential	Total Water Resources Potential
X Northern Mindanao	2,116	29,000	31,116
XII Southern Mindanao	1,758	18,700	20,458
VI Western Visayas	1,144	14,200	15,344
XI Southeastern Mindanao	2,375	11,300	13,675
IX Western Mindanao	1,082	12,100	13,182
VIII Eastern Visayas	2,557	9,350	11,907
II Cagayan Valley	2,825	8,510	11,335
III Central Luzon	1,721	7,890	9,611
IV Southern Tagalog	1,410	6,370	7,780
I Ilocos	1,248	3,250	4,498
V Bicol	1,085	3,060	4,145
VII Central Visayas	879	2,060	2,939

www.greenpeace.org/seasia/ph/.../the-state-of-water-in-the-phil.pdf

-Aaron Amos

The National Water Regulatory Board and Issues on Enforcement

In order to progress with the current water pollution problems of the country, the government itself must make initiatives regarding the issue. As response to this alarming problem, the government created the National Water Regulatory Board or the NWRB. And like any other government agency, the NWRB, who’s responsible of the water resource management in Philippines, is divided into several branches which specialize in different tasks. This division was made to ensure that each task will be done more efficiently by being closely monitored.

The following are the eight main agencies responsible for the water resource management:

•Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for flood control and drainage (this responsibility has recently been transferred to the Metro Manila Development Authority) 

•Department of Health (DOH) for sanitation 

•Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for watershed protection and water quality 

• Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) for LGU-managed water supply, and sewerage and sanitation systems and capability building 

• NationalPower Corporation (NPC) for hydropower development 

• NationalIrrigation Administration (NIA) and Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM) for irrigation development 

• Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) for water supply, sewerage, and sanitation in Metro Manila and, partially, in its neighbouring provinces; and 

• LocalWater Utilities Administration (LWUA) for the Water Districts which manage water supply and sewerage systems. 

As stated above, these agencies or offices specialize in a specific task which should ultimately result to better conditions in the Philippines. However, this actually isn’t the case. Instead of functioning better as a system, the division made the operations even more complicated.

According to Dr. Alma Madrazo, an environmental expert, “the existing regulatory set-up in the Philippines is quite complicated and poses problems on conflicts of interests and possible overlapping of responsibilities that hinders effective water resources management”. This proves that the current running system of the government is ineffective and thus, should probably need some amendments.

Also, one probable reason for the failure of this system is that when regulations are then passed to the local governments, their interpretations vary and thus creating more conflicts.

If the Philippine government really want to solve or even just ameliorate the water conditions of our country, they should probably look into their policies again and make some revisions in order to settle the conflicts that inhibit developments.

- Steven Joseph Torres

Sources:

http://pcij.org/blog/wp-docs/state_of_water.pdf, pages 39 - 42

                                                              “Clean Production”

As pollution is a serious global issue, an environmental protection initiative called “Clean Production” was formed and is slowly being dispersed to different parts of the world through international companies.

Clean Production by definition is “any practice which eliminates at source the use or formation of hazardous substances through the use of non hazardous chemicals in production processes, or through product or process redesign, and thereby prevents releases of hazardous substances into the environment by all routes, directly or indirectly.” This means that companies must not only be concerned with the production and consumption of their products, but they should also be concerned with the entire life cycle of the materials used.

Clean production has four key principles which should be integrated in order to achieve its goal:

1.       Precautionary Principle

-   This principle requires that companies should take no chances and be sure that their products will be safe and that the chemicals that they use will never be harmful to the society in any way throughout its life cycle.  They should prove that there will be no harm and no safer way to proceed.

2.       Preventive Principle

-    “Prevention is better than cure” is often quoted for a reason. Companies must use safer chemicals and eliminate hazardous chemicals, including though substitution, with effective non-hazardous alternatives instead of launching campaigns against pollution.

3.       Public Participation Principle

-   This initiative will be a waste if people won’t know anything about it. So it is necessary to disseminate information about emissions and releases of hazardous chemicals, as well as “clean production” itself in order to hasten its adoption.

4.       Holistic Principle

-   Clean production is an integrated approach to production, constantly asking what happens throughout the life cycle of the chemical or product.  It is necessary to think in terms of integrated systems, which is how the living world functions. Otherwise, new problems may be created by trying to solve old ones.

Given that Clean Production encourages the protection of biological and cultural diversity, the Philippines could definitely adapt to this initiative and benefit well from it. This will help promote sustainable development and help with the country’s problems regarding surface and ground water pollution through the adoption of cleaner production technologies. Studies and experiments were already carried out in the Philippines and have proven that indeed, the country will benefit a lot from this kind of technology.

The Philippines, however, is lagging behind its neighbouring countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan when it comes to the implementation of this new initiative. This is probably due to the fact that information about Clean Production isn’t as well circulated as in other countries. If only Filipinos would only get enough knowledge about Clean Production, then companies here might be more concerned with the effects of their products to our environment, especially to our water.

 - Steven Joseph Torres

Sources:

http://www.cleanproduction.org/library/Factsheet1_Clean_Production.pdf
http://www.cleanproduction.org/Home.php