BY JOHNNY DAYANG
VARIOUS groups that self-stylishly label themselves as “environmentalists” have collectively blamed the opening of dams as main culprit in the flooding of towns at the height of four successive typhoons that recently hit Luzon. To their credit, some local government units have even embraced their recommendation to file charges against the water reservoir operators.
Managing dams, though, is not that easy as some bright guys want us to believe; it goes beyond simple containment and release of accumulated waters. Their operation is based on physics, which is beyond political diagnostics. In the case of Cagayan province, long before Magat Dam was built, the entire valley had already undergone the same experience a century ago. Still, the governor called the recent dam opening as “criminal incompetence.”
Dams are built to contain water and are deemed safe only up to a certain level. When its capacity is broken, the dam bursts and the outcome create untold havoc on communities. Minus a functional dam, those villages will remain submerged in floods for years each time the rains are dumped, whether courtesy of the typhoon or by a huge downpour.
For obvious reason, dams are built on higher areas and wedged between mountains to ensure maximum collection of water and easy release of its content in case of overload. The structures are designed to absorb only up to a certain capacity. To protect them from collapse due to structural stress, water is discharged based on scientific computations.
Blaming dams for floods is not without basis. However, inundation of villages can be attributed mostly to man-made factors such as low-lying location of communities, presence of tributaries that overflow with rain, deforestation, siltation, obstruction of waterways, squatting and constriction of riverbeds, accumulation of trash, and destructive mining.
The rise of communities in plains that are susceptible to natural disasters has also long been a matter of popular debate. Public officials allow these areas to be transformed into organized settlements due to predictable political agenda. More sympathetic people mean more votes!
Creating safer communities, regardless of category, must follow safety protocols and adhere to stringent rules that make signatories of settlement projects criminally guilty. Even private developers should also be charged for failure to report distortions in the approval of their subdivision plans or taking for granted environmental issues affecting their investments.
In the interplay of safety, local government units must be cautious in allowing communities to rise in areas where there are historical incidences of flood. Water never rises upward without the help of a steaming sun, and rain indubitably goes where the level of an area is low.
