Agno River Irrigation: Development Or Peril?

The Tignay dagiti Mannalon a-Mangwaya-waya iti Agno (Peasant’s League to Free the Agno) or TIMMAWA, a movement opposed to the destruction of the Agno river, last week said that the San Roque Dam caused the massive floods that submerged 90 percent of the province recently and killed eight persons. Still, the government plans to embark on another perilous project connected to the dam which will affect fertile farm lands and threatens more floods in the provinces of Pangasinan and Tarlac. 

By Jhong dela Cruz
Contributed to Bulatlat

URDANETA, Pangasinan -The Tignay dagiti Mannalon a-Mangwaya-waya iti Agno (Peasant’s League to Free the Agno) or TIMMAWA, a movement opposed to the destruction of the Agno river, last week said that the San Roque Dam caused the massive floods that submerged 90 percent of the province recently. Eight persons were killed while damages to aquatic and agriculture products amounted to over P265 million. In all, 29,148 families in more than 90 villages were uprooted.

But the San Roque Power Corporation (SRPC) which operates the San Roque Multi-Purpose Dam (SRMPD) in San Manuel, Pangasinan denied the allegations.   

With its power component in place in May 2003, the San Roque Multi-purpose Dam started operations without the other non-power components such as flood control, irrigation, and water quality. The irrigation and flood control components are yet to be implemented by the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), respectively. But while SRPC consistently ignores the unresolved issues, according to TIMMAWA, it intends to create yet another perilous project, the Agno River Integrated Irrigation Project (ARIIP). 

Irrigation

In August 1999, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) approved the P10.8 billion irrigation component of SRMPD. The project was supposed to rehabilitate the existing irrigation facilities along Agno River. According to NIA, if completed it could secure an eight-year water supply for irrigation to 70,800 hectares of agricultural land, benefiting over 57,560 farmer families.

The scheme involved the construction of a new diversion weir located about 1.5 kms downstream of the existing weir. The new diversion weir has storage area of 1,000 has. and a storage capacity of 5 million cubic meters.

It also involved the rehabilitation of irrigation and drainage canals of the three existing irrigation systems down Agno: Agno River Irrigation System (ARIS), Ambayaoan-Dipalo Irrigation System (ADRIS) and Lower Agno River Irrigation System (LARIS).

The scheme covers 28 municipalities in Pangasinan, Moncada and San Manuel towns in Tarlac and Cuyapo town in Nueva Ecija. Project construction should have started this year and would end up in year 2010.

The irrigation scheme, which started its pre-engineering works in December 1999, using purely domestic funding of P250 million accomplished at least 5 percent implementation as of December 2002. It sought financial assistance from Japan through the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) but was denied due to opposition from various cause-oriented groups.

Instead, the Japanese government proposed that the scheme should not be installed in connection with the SRMPD in order to avail loan financing from JBIC. In response, NIA came up with the Agno River Integrated Irrigation Project (ARIIP), a new scheme drafted according to the irrigation component of the SRMPD. It includes the reconstruction of irrigation facilities located in ARIS and ADRIS with reduced area coverage of 34,450 hectares and a construction of a new diversion weir. The project amounts to about P6.89 billion and is seen to benefit 28,000 farmer families in 17 municipalities.

Engr. Noel Sta. Ana, Deputy Project Manager of ARIIP, said “The peasants particularly those whose lands depend on irrigation from Agno River, suffer because our facilities have worn out that’s why they need immediate repair.” Data gathered by NIA revealed that as of the present, the three irrigation systems can only provide water supply to 5,630 has. (ARIS), 691 has. (ADRIS) and 2,260 has. (LARIS) compared to 26,850 has., 7,600 has. and 12,650 has. of agricultural lands that need to be irrigated.

 “The project was derived according to the recorded Agno River flow for the past 17 years and therefore guarantees 80 percent water supply dependability,” Sta. Ana said. Restoring irrigation canals however is not sufficient to solve water supply shortage that occurs in every 2 to 3 years. Putting up a new diversion weir that can store 5.5 mcm of water supply could alleviate this, Sta. Ana explains.

TIMMAWA opposed the project because a macro-level irrigation scheme like ARIIP, it argues, is “a deceptive development project designed to further rob the peasants of Pangasinan of their right to land, life and livelihood.” 

Unresolved issues

TIMMAWA maintained that any macro-level irrigation project connected to SRMPD will not benefit peasants and Pangasinenses but further endanger their lives.

Jose Doton, TIMMAWA chairperson said, “We suspect that the ARIIP being the irrigation component of San Roque Dam will in the long run, turn out to be its flood control component.”

The group condemned SRPC’s attitude of dismissing the unsettled issues between the dam’s proponents and the affected communities by moving forward to other projects. SRPC had identified at least 300 families be given compensation for pagsasayyo (gold panning) but TIMMAWA said that there are more than 3,000 families who were deprived of their livelihood,  gold panning along Agno River, because of the dam’s construction. Former Mayor Rodrigo of San Nicolas town confirmed that about 500,000 has of land were used by SRPC and the affected farmers have not yet been given compensation.

Affected residents who were relocated to Sitio Camanggaan in San Manuel, complained of paying electricity and water bills, which according to them were promised free of charge by the San Roque Dam management. Resettlement houses were observed to be ‘sub-standard’. Others have sold their properties and abandoned their houses because of ‘uninhabitable conditions’.

Meanwhile, Bayan-Pangasinan (New Patriotic Alliance-Pangasinan) called on SRPC to abort its operation of the dam ‘to circumvent dangers the people of the province may encounter.” The alliance claimed that aside from aggravated flooding, a bigger flood that will entirely wash out the province might happen because the dam was built alongside the Dig-dig fault line, which triggered a massive earthquake affecting Benguet and Pangasinan provinces in 1990. SRPC on the other hand countered that the dam is 100 percent earthquake proof. 

Alternative solutions

TIMMAWA proposed that to solve the problem of irrigation in the province, the Agno River must be freed of all obstructions, which include the decommissioning of the San Roque Dam.

The group disclosed that about 60-80 hectares of abundant agricultural lands would be affected by the construction of the ARIIP. Doton said that like the Pantabangan and Casecnan dam in Nueva Ecija, ARIIP will fail to fulfill its promises of providing sufficient irrigation because dams particularly San Roque Dam, store big volumes of water to generate electricity for its power component.

The group appealed to NIA not to collect irrigation taxes from poor farmers, to build a small impounding dam and to develop a communal irrigation system. It also affirmed the need to rehabilitate worn-out canals in ARIS, ADRIS and LARIS and the necessity of forming small canals leading to the farmlands.

On the other hand, NIA asserted that the ARIIP is independent from the San Roque Dam and can operate even without the dam. It attested that the new diversion weir will not displace agricultural lands and should there be acquisitions, these will be given due compensation. When completed, NIA said it shall ‘lighten’ the peasants’ burden in paying accumulated debts from the bureau.

The ARIIP construction is scheduled to take off in 2005 and will be completed in 2008. Its request for loan from JBIC however, has not been approved because of the economic crisis facing the country, according to Japanese officials. Bulatlat

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