A Cebu-based consortium will extract in 25 years great volume of water in Corella, which local government unit (LGU) has an existing contract with the Bohol Water Utilities , Inc. (BWUI).
The ARN Builders and AsiaMizu, Inc. and the LGU on Monday signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) that will allow the consortium to draw as much as 500,000 cubic meters (CM) of water every month, according to Mayor Vito Rapal.
The mayor sealed the contract for the municipal government while Engr. Arnold Espinoza represented the consortium as its president.?
Like BWUI, the Cebu group is interested to supply bulk water to the island town of Panglao in anticipation of the concrete start of Panglao Bohol International Airport Project probably early next year.
Gov. Erico Aumentado and Rep. Edgar Chatto are set to meet with the warring Panglao leaders on the urgent solution to water crisis in the prime tourism island on Friday.
The BWUI has long eyed to also solve Panglao island's water problem.
The biggest and most reliable water provider hereabout today, the BWUI and the municipal government have agreed to upgrade the water supply/distribution system and expand the service area in Dauis using the P6 million aid from Chatto.
Based on the MOA, the ARN Builders-AsiaMizu will initially extract from Corella's underground source10,000 cm of water daily.
In return, the LGU will earn P1 in royalty fee for each cubic meter of water drawn by the consortium.
Rapal said the consortium pledged to release P500,000 "environment fund" to the LGU six months since the sealing of the contract.
In addition, the commercial water extractor will grant an annual P400,000 "social fund."
But unlike the BWUI, the ARN Builder-AsiaMizu cannot give free water to Corella, the very source of the essential commodity.
The municipality has been consuming water more than the volume granted free to the town per BWUI-LGU agreement.
Thus, the excess would be charged against the royalty fee that the LGU would supposedly get from BWUI.
The LGU would still earn, though, because the town's water consumption would already include the free water from BWUI that the municipal waterworks system has in turn sold to resident-consumers.
The BWUI has a pending proposal to add wells, and Rapal said the LGU can act on it notwithstanding the entry of the consortium.
It can depend on the action of the Sangguniang Bayan, to which the BWUI plan has been referred, the mayor hinted.
Rapal said the 30-kilometer radius Corella aquifer can definitely sustain additional water extractions for human use as long as the negotiation pursues a "win-win" scheme.