CITY OF MALOLOS: The Ipo Dam concluded its water-spilling operations on Saturday morning, as water levels in regional dams showed improvement following heavy rains from Severe Tropical Storm Kristine.
According to Philippines News Agency, Josephine Salazar, Central Luzon Director of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), confirmed that the water-spilling operation at Ipo Dam was halted as of 9 a.m. on Saturday. The cessation followed monitored local inflow to Bustos Dam from upstream rivers at 64 cubic meters per second (CMS).
Following the developments, Bustos Dam’s Sluice Gates 1 and 2 were closed at 10 a.m., with a water elevation recorded at 16.91 meters. Sluice Gate 3 remains raised at 3 meters, continuing to release 64 CMS of water downstream before it flows into Manila Bay. The situation at Angat Dam also showed improvement, with water elevation increasing by more than a meter as of Saturday morning.
Retired Col. Manuel Lukban, chief of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Of
fice of Bulacan, reported that Angat Dam’s water elevation stood at 201.70 meters as of 11 a.m. on Saturday. In comparison, Ipo Dam and Bustos Dam recorded water elevations of 100.36 meters and 16.91 meters, respectively.
Lukban noted that Angat Dam’s water level is 8.30 meters below its 210-meter normal high water elevation for the rainy season and 10.30 meters below the normal high water elevation of 212 meters for the dry season. Meanwhile, Ipo Dam’s water level decreased to 100.36 meters, below its spilling level of 101.00 meters, and Bustos Dam’s level fell to 16.91 meters, below its 17.35-meter spilling level.
The preemptive release of water from Ipo and Bustos Dams was conducted in response to heavy rainfall from Severe Tropical Storm Kristine. Angat Dam is crucial to the region, providing over 90 percent of Metro Manila’s raw water needs, hydropower energy to the Luzon Grid, and irrigation to approximately 25,000 hectares of rice farms in Bulacan and parts of Pampanga.