THE Osaka-based Global Utility Development Corp. Ltd. (GUDC) is now reviving its proposal to build the $410-million Kaliwa Intake Weir Project under a 25-year build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme in light of the severe water crisis affecting millions of customers in the east zone of Metro Manila.

GUDC Chief Executive Officer Toshkazu Nomura said their proposal is a more feasible and cost-efficient long-term solution to Metro Manila’s potable water-supply problem, challenging the wisdom of pursuing the Kaliwa Dam Project.

At a press conference in Quezon City, Nomura said they first raised the proposal in 2009 to address the need for adequate water supply in Metro Manila in addition to the Angat Dam.

The proposal is to build a water source that will not only meet the capacities needed by the MWSS but also utilizes a long-term, sustainable approach in consideration of communities and livelihoods in the area, he said.

Under the BOT scheme, the proposal would be at no cost to the government nor require sovereign guarantees.

The proposed Kaliwa Intake Weir, with its target capacity of producing 550 MLD, will have a 7-meter high weir with a 16-kilometer-long tunnel that has a diameter of 3.3 meters.

Already included in the proposal is the construction of a water-treatment plant within the vicinity. It will have a construction period of 36 months.

“If we start by June 2019, the project can be completed within this administration,” Nomura said.

George Campos, head of GUDC’s Business Development Office, said their proposal will spare the MWSS and the Duterte administration the trouble of going through the tedious permitting process, which is causing the delay of the implementation of the Kaliwa Dam Project.

First, it will spare the Daraitan Village, where 450 families reside, from imminent danger under the current MWSS project design, he said.

“Under the current MWSS project, the entire village will be flooded. This requires relocation of the people living in the area,” said Campos.

While he said GUDC is not competing with the proposal of the Chinese company as project proponent per se, only one dam is needed in the area. Both dams are targeting water supply from the Kaliwa River.

“It is either the Kaliwa Dam or the Kaliwa Intake Weir Project,” he said.

The current MWSS project design requires the construction of a 73-meter-high concrete face rock-fill dam.

Under the GUDC proposal, the site of the dam will be 4 kilometers upstream of the MWSS dam site; only a 7-meter-high concrete gravity dike will be constructed, and there will be no need to relocate Daraitan Village residents.

GUDC’s proposal entails building one water-treatment plant with a capacity of 550 MLD in Tanay, Rizal. Under the current MWSS project, two plants with a capacity of 1,200 MLD each at Pantay and Teresa dams will be constructed.

A weir or low head dam is a barrier across the horizontal width of a river that alters the flow characteristics of water and results in a change in the height of the river level. This, Nomura says, is a viable alternative to building a dam and will sufficiently deliver the capacity required by the MWSS.

“We don’t know why you have to build a 73-meter concrete face rock-fill when your requirement is for the production of 600 MLD,” said Campos.

Nomura and Campos both hoped the MWSS would finally honor the memorandum of understanding it signed with GUDC in 2009.

GUDC has been doing construction and engineering projects in the Philippines over the past decade. It is currently building the 300-megawatt Calaca coal-fired power plant in Batangas, and the National Network of 500-kV transmission line from Naga to Lucena-Kalayaan-San Jose.