Ronaldo Castanaga
24 Oct 2009

Re: Appropriate legislation needed

I noticed the broad base of interest generated by this exchange of ideas among so called dam experts.

Mr. Gold said, it was a good read. To be honest, I’m not. I’m just trying to educate myself because I live within close proximity to a humongous earthen dam that impounds water for irrigation, wild life, drinking water and recreation. I’m not like FVR who graduated from a center of academic excellence (West Point). I’m only a product of Manantan Tech of Urdaneta, Pangasinan.

Yes, Mr. Carrera, I said uncontrolled spilling is incorrect. I should have stated that water releases should have been incremental at low flow with scientific certainty that it will not cause massive lose of lives and properties.

Reports by SRDM said, the dam started spilling at 288 ft. Dam safety is at 280 feet. Dam designers consider 10 feet above dam safety as its breaking point.

My opinion, since dam operators are very focused on dam safety, they’re bound to release water at this height or else the dam breaks. If that happens and you’re in the area, better call my friend Bill Jimenez to recite your last requiem.

SRDM had been operating this dam for two years. There’s no excuse for them not to have a dam protocol (SOP) at this time based on previous years of flooding events.

They could be indicted for negligence and dereliction of duties in regards to dam safety operation. They should have sets of conditions from a 10-yr, 15-yr, 35-yr, 50-yr and even 500-yr forecast event (Noah’s Ark conditions). From these flood event scenarios and analysis, at least they can estimate how much water releases are decided to avert massive destructions downstream of the dam.

It’s tricky because a storm with heavy rain is already causing flood conditions in the lowlands of Pangasinan, in addition to this, SRDM still have to release water to maintain dam safety.

Typhoon Pepeng, is a 50-yr flood (bigger than Mr. Micua’s archive report on the 1935-yr storm) can be depicted on a graph showing size of flooding under this hypothetical scenario.

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