By: Jason de Asis
BALER, Aurora, Feb. 14 (PNA) — A ranking official of the Bugkalot tribes in the tri-boundaries of Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino and this province has expressed alarm over the drying up of the Casecnan River which he blamed to the American operator of the USD 600-million build-operate-transfer component of the Casecnan Multipurpose Irrigation and Power Project (CMIPP).
Rocky Valderama Jr., a member of the board of directors of the Confederation of Bugkalots in Aurora, Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino , accused the California Energy Casecnan Water and Energy Company, Inc. (CECWECI) of allegedly diverting huge volume of water from the Casecnan River, causing it to dry up and affecting the livelihood of the Bugkalot families derived from fishing.
“The Casecnan River has dried up. What remains is only a few volume of water downstream,” Valderama said.
He said the sudden loss of water in the Casecnan River was because CECWECI made use of it, violating an agreement it entered into with the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) before the dam was constructed that it would only utilize 1.6% of the 49 billion cubic meters of water in the river.
“Instead of using just 1.6% of the water, CECWECI utilized the full 49 billion cubic meters which emptied the Casecnan River,” he said.
CECWECI, is a subsidiary of the Mid-American Energy Company which built the BOT component of the CMIPP in 1995, involving a 26-kilometer underground trans-basin tunnel that diverts water from the Taang and Casecnan rivers in Nueva Vizcaya to the Pantabangan Dam in Nueva Ecija.
Completed in December 2001, the BOT component guarantees an annual inflow of 800 million cubic meters of water to Pantabangan Dam, irrigating an additional 35,000 hectares on top of the 102,000 hectares serviced by the Pantabangan Dam.
Valderama said because no water is flowing in the Casecnan River, this destroyed the natural habitat of “ludong,” a fish specie which is the primary source of livelihood.
Ludong sells at Php 4,000 to Php 5,000 a kilo.
Valderama said with the Casecnan River no longer teeming with aquatic life, Bugkalot fishermen in nine barangays of Nagtipunan in Quirino and Barangay Pelaway, Alfonso Castaneda in Nueva Vizcaya have stopped fishing.
He said even people from Aurora have been affected because it is there where most of their ancestral lands are located.
“Before, we have fish festivals during summer but now, we no longer have any,” he said.
Aside from the loss of livelihood, people who used to cross the river could no longer travel by bancas to their place of destination, he said.
CECWECI has faced protests in the past by folks in Nueva Vizcaya which complained that it utilizes water from the province but not even a single drop of water and not even a single kilowatt of electricity goes there.