Save rainwater, too (Sabong News)
Author
Jullie Y. Daza
Date
APRIL 12 2022
When LPA meets Malakas, destructive floods occur in places in the Visayas and Mindanao while Metro Manilans pray for rain. Rain is as utilitarian as it is romantic, but what a waste, when all that precious precipitation just goes down the drain.
And yet, and yet, at least 20 SM malls are doing something about it – something that neither the Department of Agriculture nor the National Water Resources Board wants to consider as a practical solution to the perennial water shortage problem. The answer is a series of rainfall catchments to catch the rain and store it for uses other than drinking.
Okay, so rainwater is not fit for drinking, but under a system like MWSS where potable water comes out of the same taps for washing, flushing toilets, putting out fires, irrigating, and manufacturing, whatever volume is saved for drinking is a blessing and a bonus!
Quoting from an SM Supermalls report, the water caught in those catchments spread out among 20 malls is enough to fill 32 Olympic-size pools. Imagine our farms and plantations thirsty for rain today and drowning in seasonal or untimely floods next week, when DA could easily have designed and distributed yesterday a prototype of SM’s rain-storing facilities. If the malls can do it, why not a government department funded to help farmers and urban dwellers as well? We’re not asking for a dam which takes years and billions to build, we’re waiting for a much simpler, cheaper way to harvest rain and even prevent floods.
SM Masinag, with a catch capacity of 17,681 cubic meters, serves two communities whose drainage systems are connected to the mall through its 30 hp submersible pumps that flush out accumulated rainwater, thereby preventing floods.
SM gives credit to a law authored by no less than presidential candidate Sen. Manny Pacquiao, whose Rainwater Harvesting Act mandates the “establishment, maintenance, and management of rainwater harvesting systems.” Under the hot sun or in the rain, the candidate tells his fans and supporters how he prays for signs and receives messages in his dreams.
The good senator should next pose this question to DA and other relevant government agencies: How many more typhoons before you start saving rain, a gift from heaven?
