(Eagle News) — Maynilad, the water concessionaire for Metro Manila’s west zone, inaugurated on Monday, April 9, its new water treatment plant, the Putatan Water Treatment Plant 2, which treats water coming from Laguna Lake.
The Putatan Water Treatment Plant 2 (PWTP2), Maynilad’s second treatment facility which sources raw water from Laguna Lake, started operations this April 1.
It produces 100 million liters of potable water per day for its customers in Las Piñas, Muntinlupa, Parañaque and Cavite.
Maynilad President and Chief Executive Officer Ramoncito S. Fernandez said that the company “has been tapping Laguna Lake as source since 2009 when our first treatment facility in Muntinlupa became operational.”
“In anticipation of the growing demand for water, we constructed this additional facility which will not only increase available supply but also enable us to better address the variable quality of the raw water coming from Laguna Lake,” he said in a statement.
The facility’s output will be expanded in phases until it reaches its full 150-MLD capacity by the latter part of the year, at which point Maynilad’s Putatan Water Treatment Plant 1 (PWTP 1) will be temporarily shut down for rehabilitation and upgrades, according to Maynilad.
“With the completion of this new facility, our priority is to increase service levels for existing customers in the south, who still have a limited supply window until now,” Fernandez said.
Maynilad said that it is treating the water coming from Laguna Lake using new technologies such as large-scale ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis.
WTP 2 uses a multi-stage process of Dissolved Air Flotation, Biological Aerated Filter, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, and chlorination to treat the lake water and convert it to a product that complies with the Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water (PNSDW) of the Department of Health, a Maynilad release said.
The water from the Lake was muddy and Maynilad’s “technology partners were challenged with the kind of impurities that are in the lake,” said Maynilad chairman Manny Pangilinan.
“But I think we’ve learned a lot and we’ve installed new technology like reverse osmosis so now there are fewer and fewer problems,” he said.
Pangilinan said that Laguna Lake was an alternative source of water as Maynilad aims to be less dependent on Angat as its primary source of water.
Maynilad is the largest private water concessionaire in the Philippines in terms of customer base, serving about 9.5 million people to date. It is the agent and contractor of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) for the West Zone 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.