Bacolod Bulk Water Inc. (BBWI), a subsidiary of Tubig Pilipinas Group Inc., announced on Thursday, May 8, the commissioning of its new water treatment plant that will deliver an additional 25 million liters per day (MLD) to households in this highly-urbanized city.
“This is a major step forward from where we started. Gindesisyunan gid namon nga i-upgrade ang tanan, from suppliers to systems, to make sure nga ang serbisyo namon matuod-tuod kag masaligan,” BBWI chief operations officer Mark Roxas said in a statement.
The commissioning of the 25MLD Murcia Water Treatment Plant marks the completion of Phase 2 of BBWI’s bulk water project, which has a capacity of serving up to 25,000 households daily.
The project sources surface water from the Sum-ag River located in Barangay Abo-Abo, Murcia town east of Bacolod.
In June last year, BBWI signed an agreement with PrimeWater Bacolod and its joint venture partner Bacolod City Water District (Baciwa) to provide an additional 10 MLD in the first year, progressively increasing to 25 MLD in the fifth year.
The additional supply will boost water availability in around 10,000 households in the southern part of Bacolod, mainly areas in the villages of Mansilingan, Handumanan, Felisa, Alijis, Tangub, Taculing, Pahanocoy, Sum-ag, and Singcang-Airport.
On Thursday, Roxas, together with plant manager Benjie Natividad, toured reporters at the water treatment plant in Murcia, which currently supplies an initial five MLD to PrimeWater Bacolod.
Built with cutting-edge, fully automated systems, the Murcia facility features 36 online water quality instruments that monitor water safety every second, ensuring compliance with national standards.
“This is about majority of the P1-billion investment. About P1.5 billion [in total], including the Caliban River development,” Roxas said.
He added BBWI has begun the construction of Phase 3, which involves a four-kilometer pipeline that will source additional water from the Caliban River “essential to ensuring consistency and increasing capacity from 40 MLD to 50 MLD.”
Phase 1, which involved the operation of Ngalan Water Treatment Plant in Barangay Granada, Bacolod City, has been providing an average of 15 MLD to Baciwa since 2017. (PNA)