West zone Maynilad Water Services Inc. on Thursday raised concerns over its reduced water production due to an “unusual” algae proliferation in Laguna Lake.
Customers in Metro Manila’s Muntinlupa City, Las Piñas City, and Parañaque City, and Cavite’s Imus and Bacoor will continue to experience low-water pressure to no-water supply until May 14.
Maynilad noticed the first algal bloom last April 23, saying the excessive algae would require additional cleaning and declogging at the Muntinlupa’s Putatan water treatment facilities.
The proliferation of algae was credited to the warmer temperature brought about by the El Niño phenomenon.
“We are intensifying our treatment interventions to address the issues brought about by the algal bloom and bring our production back to normal levels,” Maynilad said.
Despite the continued algae proliferation in Laguna Lake, Maynilad said “we have been able to increase the production of our Putatan water treatment facilities (1 and 2) from a low of 80 million liters per day to 125 million liters per day.
While such is still below our normal production—as the facilities’ full combined capacity is at 250 million liters per day—it is an improvement that will help us to better stabilize supply in the network, and marginally increase the supply availability window for some of the affected areas, the water firm said.
“We are intensifying our treatment interventions to address the issues brought about by the algal bloom and bring our production back to normal levels,” it added.