Basey irrigation test run on August 21

By CHITO DELA TORRE
August 12, 2011

BASEY, Samar  –  Provincial Irrigation Engineer Amadeo R. Montejo will lead local officials and employees of the National Irrigation Administration in Samar in playing host to top NIA executives and other government officials in the test run of the Basey Irrigation Project come August 21 this year.

Engr. Montejo and staff will guide their visiting guests to the irrigation dam which utilizes the natural power of the Bugasan River.  The dam site can be reached after four kilometers of climbs and treks from Mabini, a populous upstream interior riverine village of Basey, Samar, Philippines.

By August 21, a Sunday, the valves at the dam will be opened to release a great volume of water that will next run via gravity force into a cut-and-cover canal that ascends and descends the mountainous portion of Mabini, further flow down to an under-the-river canal, and then out into the 1,500 hectares of rice fields of the town.

By that time, rice farmers could already be standing by the open irrigation canal or right at their rice paddies to witness for the first time in their lives how the irrigation system will provide rice-life-sustaining water to assure up to four times of planting and harvesting rice.

The dam and canals had been designed by supervising engineer Raul B. Salipuran.

Irrigation will now be a blessing to the rice farmers in the villages of Mabini, Inuntan, Guirang, Burgos, Del Pilar, Old San Agustin, Bulao, and Cogon, and maybe even part of Cancaiyas or even that section towards, or near or between Villa Aurora and Sawa.

The Basey Irrigation Project has a potential irrigable area of 3,000 hectares, which could include rice fields in other barrios towards the east and southeast.

The NIA’s irrigation development officers, like Mitchelle A. Manog, Leah L. Advento and Maylane G. Advincula, and IDS chief Monaliza J. Cuna, have been looking into the formal training and organization of the landowners who may henceforth become irrigators that will be managing the usage of the irrigation facility in their own localities.