Water supply at South Road Properties not a problem

By Ehda M. Dagooc
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Amid the looming water supply problem in Cebu, future locators of the South Road Properties (SRP) have nothing to worry about as the Cebu City government acquired two water treatment facilities for the locators’ water requirement.

In fact, the Cebu Investment Promotions Center (CIPC) managing director Joel Mari S. Yu said water supply is not going to be a problem at SRP, they could even sell extra supply to the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) if they need to.




CIPC is commissioned by the Cebu City government in marketing the 300-hectare SRP.

SRP now has one treatment facility to recycle waste water and another machine that will convert sea water into potable water through desalination process.

Yu said the city government never intended to buy water from MCWD and water supply will never be a cause of concern among interested investors.

SRP is projected to need about 20,000 to 25,000 cubic meters a day if it’s already fully occupied with locators.

Locators will only need about 30 percent potable water, while the rest can be sourced via recycled water.

As for the water problem in Cebu, Yu said MCWD will have to look for other sources, aside from the Ayala consortium offer.

However, he said water problem in Cebu is not as bad as projected because big investors are now currently using other sources of water instead of getting their supply from MCWD.

At the Mactan Export Zone (MEZ1 and 2) for instance, Yu said 60 percent of the water requirement is used for flushing toilet, among other uses, aside from drinking.

“There are now other sources of water supply. Most companies right now are using recycled water technology, or desalination process to cut cost on water bills,” Yu said.

Currently, there is a huge impression that the whole of Cebu is suffering from water shortage. But with the advent of water technology, water recycling for one, investors do not have to worry about water shortage anymore.

Early this year, SM City Cebu adopted the water desalination technology for its water requirement, in order to cut cost on water bills.

“As a big water consumer, we might as well help the community by not depriving them of water supply, so we are using sea water processed through desalination,” said SM City Cebu mall manager Sherry Tuvilla.

By using alternative water supply source, Tuvilla said SM City is expected to save 10 percent of its average P2 million monthly water bills.

In the past, water desalination was not popularly adopted by some big companies and establishments in the Philippines, because of high cost of processing.

However, with improved technology in water, this has become a cheaper alternative for big water consumers, such as manufacturing plants, mall establishments, hotels, among others.

Reportedly, cost of desalinated water has become competitive, and even cheaper than the conventional water supply.