THE Davao City Water District (DCWD) will have seven additional container trucks this year to augment water distribution in areas that do not have sufficient supply.
In a media interview Tuesday, January 25, DCWD spokesperson lawyer Bernard Delima said five of the trucks will be leased and two will be procured by the DCWD.
Delima said they started making arrangements for the lease of five trucks, adding the five trucks will add to their current fleet of six trucks, wherein two are owned by DCWD and four borrowed from the Davao Volunteer Fire Brigade and Filipino Chinese Fire Brigade.
The four borrowed trucks are currently used to provide water in the Cabantian area.
One tanker carry up to 30 cubic meters, where one cubic meter is equivalent to five drums of water.
Currently, residents of Cabantian received water rations every other day due to the water shortage.
Part of the mitigating initiatives of DCWD is to divide Cabantian into two areas. They alternately deliver water to these areas.
Delima said the water shortage experienced in the area is due to the reduced volume of the water sourced from production wells.
He added volume of 10,000 cubic meters had been sufficient in the area until April 2016 where the production capacity of the wells dropped by 50 percent and can no longer produce the 9,000 cubic meters demand of Cabantian.
"The wells can only produce 5,000 cubic meters during the time of El Ni¤o until now," Delima said, adding that this is only temporary as the construction of the two new wells in Indangan will be utilized for Cabantian water supply.
The wells are expected to be completed in December 2017 or early 2018.
Delima said that in their meeting Tuesday, the DCWD management will hasten finding delivery trucks and also hasten the completion of the Indangan water source.
DCWD is also eyeing to check the valving mechanism in Cabantian as it may also solve the water problem. (KVC)