Maynilad Water Services Inc., the water concessionaire in the west zone of Metro Manila, recently completed the upgrade of a sedimentation basin at the La Mesa Treatment Plant 1 in Quezon City.
The upgrade is part of the company’s P7-billion rehabilitation of LMTP 1 and 2, which produce about 2,400 million liters of water a day for some 9 million customers.
The 12 sedimentation basins at LMTP 1 are being fitted with tube settlers and sludge scrapers, increasing the plant’s capacity to address high turbidity in the raw water during the rainy season.
“While there are 11 more basins to go, this is a significant milestone in the rehab project of La Mesa and our ability to respond to the challenges of climate change,” said company chief operating officer Randolph Estrellado.
The rehabilitation of the 12 basins is being done in phases so that plant operations will not be disturbed even if the upgrades are being done.
“We are upgrading one basin at a time because we cannot shut down the plant and interrupt water service to give way to the rehabilitation work,” Estrellado added.
Other upgrades being done in LMTP 1 and 2 are the retrofitting of structures for enhanced earthquake resiliency and the automation of processes for more reliable operations.
The rehabilitation project is expected to be completed by 2020.
Maynilad is the largest private water concessionaire in the Philippines in terms of customer base.
It is the agent and contractor of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System for the west xone of the Greater Manila Area, which is composed of the cities of Manila (certain portions), Quezon City (certain portions), Makati (west of South Super Highway), Caloocan, Pasay, Parañaque, Las Piñas, Muntinlupa, Valenzuela, Navotas and Malabon all in Metro Manila; the cities of Cavite, Bacoor and Imus, and the towns of Kawit, Noveleta and Rosario, all in Cavite province.