Ipo Dam ends water release

CITY OF MALOLOS, Bulacan - The Ipo Dam terminated its water-spilling operations on Saturday morning. Josephine Salazar, Central Luzon Director of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), in a statement, confirmed that as of 9 a.m. on Saturday, the water-spilling operation of Ipo Dam has been stopped. "The local inflow to Bustos Dam coming from its upstream river was monitored at 64 cubic meters per second (CMS) of water," Salazar said. As this developed, Bustos Dam's Sluice Gates 1 and 2 were closed at 10 a.m. with its water elevation at 16.91 meters, while its Sluice Gate 3 remains raised at 3 meters that releases 64 CMS of water on its downstream river system before flowing to the Manila Bay. On the other hand, Angat Dam's water elevation improved by more than a meter on Saturday morning. According to ret. Col. Manuel Lukban, chief of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office of Bulacan, PDRRMO records showed that the dam's water elevation as of 11 a.m. on Saturday was at 201.70 meters, while Ipo Dam was at 100.36 meters and Bustos Dam at 16.91 meters. "Angat Dam's water level is 8.30 meters below its 210-meter normal high water elevation for the rainy season or 10.30 meters below its normal high water elevation of 212 meters for the dry season," Lukban said. Meanwhile, the water elevation of Ipo Dam has gone down to 100.36 meters as against its spilling level of 101.00 meters, while Bustos Dam's water level has gone down to 16.91 meters as against its 17.35-meter spilling level. Ipo and Bustos Dams have been conducting a preemptive release of water due to heavy rains dumped by Severe Tropical Storm Kristine (international name Trami) in the past several days. Angat Dam provides more than 90 percent of Metro Manila's raw water needs, supplies additional hydropower energy to the Luzon Grid, and supplies irrigation water to about 25,000 hectares of irrigated rice farms in Bulacan and parts of Pampanga. Source: Philippines News Agency