Boracay Eco Watch

Water Problems

2008-06-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

Many residential areas in Boracay these days do not have 24h water supply. Bolabog for example often has only about 8h of water a day, water comes some time in the morning and is being cut off in the afternoon. This is quite annoying but actually just one of the smallest water problems that Boracay has. What is much worse, is the water that leaves the island, the poorly treated sewage that is being pumped into Bolabog lagoon and the spillage of highly polluted ground water into all beaches around the Balabag lowlands.

Yes, that includes our "pristine" White Beach, our main tourist attraction, where we can see the algae bloom in every peak season. The algae is a good indicator for the poor water quality. In the monsoon season (Habagat) the algae is washed away, due to water dilution from the rougher waters. But every high season the algae and its foul smell reappears.

Next to being a serious health hazard, the poor water quality also destroys our coral reefs, which in turn threatens not only the dive shops, but also the beach itself. The reefs protect the sand from being washed away off shore because the reefs break the waves. Also, the white sand actually comes from a species of algae that -in contrast to the blooming algae mentioned above- is very sensitive to water pollution. Without the presence of this algae no new sand is being produced. Together with the increased erosion due to missing reefs our beaches are becoming smaller and smaller. Everybody who has known the island for a long time will be able to testify that White Beach used to be wider than it is today. Right now we can see Diniwid beach disappearing which is among other factors attributed to the missing reef.

Dr. Thomas Goreau, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, has studied the state of Boracay's water pollution problem extensively since 1997. In 1997, the development boom had not even really started and Goreau's Report on water quality and coral reef health was already devastating. Goreau's recommendations regarding the sewage treatment plant were ignored with the result that poorly treated water is now being discharged far too close from the shore.

However, Goreau is not giving up and in 2007, ten years after his initial report, he issued another paper in which he gives extensive recommendations to remedy the current situation. We urge you to read this paper because it gives us viable recommendations reaching from proper sewage treatment to coral reef reconstruction and even sources for renewable energy. If you have ever done the drift drive in the channel between Boracay and Panay you know that the current there is enormous, enough to power tidal power plants that would give us an environmentally friendly source of power.

Long Time No Sea

2008-05-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

What a brilliant T-Shirt. BORACAY is displayed as the skeleton of a dead fish. Underneath it says "Long Time No Sea". The T-Shirt was found while waiting in Caticlan Airport's departure lounge. Does anyone know where these T-Shirts are sold?

WTF? A road along Bolabog???

2008-04-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

We had heard rumors about this and now even found something on the web about it. The plan is to build a road along Bolabog beach.

Of course this means cutting down those palm trees and building a wall that will most probably mean the end of the white sand at Bolabog beach. Read on about this atrocity at Tripadvisor.

After D-Mall comes....

2008-02-27T02:15:00.000-08:00

A B C D ...

E-Mall!

The DENR: Force or Farce?

2008-02-26T19:15:00.000-08:00

If you follow the news on the DENR's effort for a sustainable, ecologically friendly development in Boracay, you may think they are really doing something and everything goes in the right direction. For example The Inquirer's headline reads

DENR cracks down on environmental violators in Boracay

Well, you are being mislead.

On February 11, 2008 the DENR issued a notice to the public stating the unlawfulness of the filling-up of a water body in a wetland in Bolabog. The notice reads:

NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC
THE ONGOING FILLING-UP OF WATER BODY AND CONSTRUCTION OF STRUCTURES WERE ISSUED A NOTICE IN VIOLATION OF EXISTING LAWS AND REGULATION BY DENR EFFECTIVE FEBRUARY 11, 2008
CONTINUOUS CONSTRUCTION OF STRUCTURES, FILLING-UP OF WATER BODY AND REMOVAL OF THIS NOTICE SHALL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY.

The notice was also issued in Tagalog:

BABALA
ANG PATULOY NA PAGTAMBAK SA "LAGOON" AT PAGPAPATAYO NG PROYEKTO DITO MAHIGPIT NA PINAGBABAWAL ALINSUNOD SA BATAS NA INPINATUTUPAD NG DENR

The above picture of the two notice boards were made on February 16, 2008. Only four days later, on February 20 the notice had been removed.

To our knowledge, nobody has been charged with the removal of the notice. In the meantime...

...construction work has been ongoing...

...mature trees are being cut down...

...and the lake is being pumped dry.

All of the pictures above have been taken AFTER the DENR's "crackdown"!

Why is this not being stopped?

Why does the national media not report on these criminal acts?

The "Not Wetland" Lie

2008-02-20T22:47:00.000-08:00

The DENR is currently having a hard time in trying to stop the destruction of a wetland for commercial use. Boracay Crown Regency Hotels and Convention Center is about to lay dry a lake on a one hectare property in Barangay Balabag in order to develop 60 apartment units on the site.

The DENR is trying to stop the project arguing the property's tax declaration was wrongfully issued because the site is a natural wetland. However, according to an Inquirer.net article, the Crown Regency's lawyer Deolito Alvarez denies the property is on a wetland. Alvarez says water was diverted to the property from a wetland across the road.

Time for Boracay Eco Watch to do a short investigation. A neighbor of the property who lived on the site for all his life confirms us that the wetland has always been at this location. No diversion took place. In fact we saw a little stream that went through the neighbor's garden which feeds the lake and comes from the opposite direction of "the wetland across" referred to by Alvarez. On further investigation more such streams (albeit dried up at the time) were found. So really the lake is not being fed by means of diversion, the company is just blatantly lying in order to stop or at least delay the DENR's effort.

The recent flooding in areas around Boracay's D'Mall, a site that also used to be a wetland before being laid dry, has shown us the problems associated with wetland being destroyed. In the rainy season the water just has to go somewhere so it will flood something else. In other words the neighbors of the land filled site are the losers in this game.

Editor's Note: We thought the lie about the wetland was a good opener for this blog. The wetland reclamation project being discussed here will be covered by us in more detail in the future, so watch out for this. In the meantime, you can join the effort at Facebook where we have uploaded more photographs of the wetland being filled up.