NIA proposes new Magat Dam protocols following Cagayan, Isabela flooding

The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) is proposing a new set of protocols in the operations of Magat Dam when there is an impending typhoon to prevent a repeat of the massive flooding that hit Cagayan and Isabela in November last year.

NIA administrator Ricardo Visaya presented the proposed new protocols during the joint inquiry of the House Committee on Agriculture and Food and of the Special Committee on North Luzon Growth Quadrangle on the Cagayan flooding on Thursday.

According to Visaya, the NIA formed a technical working group (TWG) a week after Typhoon Ulysses hit the country in November last year "to review the executive protocol insofar as operations on Magat Dam is concerned."

The TWG was headed by scientist and UP professor Dr. Guillermo Tabios and was also participated by various government agencies, among them the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), PAGASA, Office of Civil Defense (OCD), National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and NAPOCOR.

Under the proposed new protocols, Visaya said concerned agencies must first coordinate with PAGASA to understand where the impending typhoon will make landfall, the expected time and date of the landfall, the intensity of rainfall it will bring, and if there are other weather phenomenon or disturbance that may affect it.

From there, the warning stations will then be activated 24 hours before the preemptive release of water from Magat Dam, coupled with a public announcement through text blast.

An acknowledgement from the affected local government unit will also be required three hours after the public announcement of the preemptive release.

In the original protocol, the warning stations will be activated only six hours before the preemptive release of water from the dam.

The proposed new protocols also provide that the preemptive release of water be done when the dam reaches an elevation of 190 meters above sea level and when the typhoon is expected to make a landfall in the affected regions within three to four days.

Currently, the protocol is to release water from the dam only two to three days before the expected landfall of the typhoon.

Concerned agencies must now also be informed three times and with acknowledgement before the preemptive release of water.

Visaya, in the previous hearing, said the opening of the water gates of Magat Dam was not the major cause of the flooding in Cagayan and Isabela in November last year.

He added that the release of water from Magat Dam was done gradually and not all at once.

The massive flooding in Cagayan and Isabela, he also said, could have been prevented had there been better implementation of anti-illegal logging, mining and quarrying activities.

Typhoon Ulysses has left 73 people dead and 68 others injured, and affected 3.8 million individuals or more than 932,000 families, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

President Rodrigo Duterte placed the entire Luzon under state of calamity following the onslaught of typhoons Rolly and Ulysses. —KBK, GMA News