The West Zone water concessionaire said the investments, covering completed and ongoing projects over several years, are designed to improve operational efficiency and manage fluctuations in raw water quality and availability.
The improvements include upgrades to water treatment processes, additional raw water storage, expanded recovery and augmentation systems, and replacement of aging equipment, Maynilad said in a statement.
Treatment upgrades
Among the major projects is the upgrading of La Mesa Water Treatment Plant 1 (LMTP1), which can now handle peak raw water turbidity levels of up to 2,000 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU), compared with its original design capability of approximately 300 NTU.
Similar improvements are ongoing at LMTP2 to increase its treatment capability to the same level.
The upgrades are intended to reduce operational constraints during periods of high raw water turbidity. The Angat-Ipo system previously recorded turbidity levels of approximately 1,800 NTU in 2012.
The two La Mesa treatment plants have a combined design capacity of 2,400 million liters per day (MLD), comprising 1,500 MLD at LMTP1 and 900 MLD at LMTP2.
Water recovery
Maynilad is also expanding its water recovery and raw water augmentation systems, which are designed to provide a combined capacity of approximately 125 MLD to 170 MLD once all three systems become operational.
Recovery Systems 1 and 3 are already operational, while Recovery System 2 is targeted for completion in December 2026.
The company has also converted former sludge lagoons into dedicated raw water reservoirs to provide additional storage during periods of reduced inflow or adjustments in water allocation.
Lagoons 3 and 4 currently provide approximately 133 million liters of storage, equivalent to about two-thirds of the planned 200-million-liter total capacity.
The additional storage is expected to give Maynilad greater flexibility in managing available raw water supplies, particularly during dry periods.
Supply resilience
In the same statement, Maynilad chief operating officer Christopher Jaime T. Lichauco said the investments form part of the company's efforts to strengthen water supply reliability through more efficient use of existing resources.
“We continue to invest in La Mesa because water supply resilience depends not only on how much raw water is available, but also on how efficiently we can treat, recover and manage the water already within our system,” Lichauco said.
“These improvements give us additional operating flexibility as raw water conditions change and support our continuing preparations for potentially drier conditions associated with El Niño,” he added.
Other rehabilitation works include improvements to sedimentation, filtration, sludge management, monitoring and control systems, and related treatment equipment.
The La Mesa projects form part of Maynilad's broader water supply resilience program, which also includes developing alternative water sources, reducing non-revenue water, expanding storage capacity and upgrading its distribution network. —Ed: Corrie S. Narisma
