WEST Zone concessionaire Maynilad Water Services Inc. is allocating P686 million to transform areas inside its La Mesa compound in Quezon City to an impounding reservoir for the raw water from the Angat-Ipo Dam system.

Maynilad said on Friday it would be converting four existing sludge lagoons, used to serve as disposal sites for waste produced by the water treatment process, into a 6-meter-deep reservoir that can store around 200 million liters of raw water.

The conversion will give the La Mesa Treatment Plant 1 an additional raw water reserve that can augment supply whenever inflows from the Angat-Ipo Dam system are depleted due to the absence of rain or reduced allocations.

"Since our La Mesa Treatment Plant rehabilitation program already included the construction of new sludge treatment facilities, the existing sludge lagoons could be put to better use as a storage site for raw water," Maynilad Water supply operations head Ronaldo Padua said.

"By repurposing the lagoons, we can maximize the value of the site and help address our need for increased water storage," he added.

Targeted for completion by the fourth quarter of 2025, the raw water reservoir will also serve as a settlement basin.

"This reservoir will not only increase our water storage capacity but also help us sustain water service even during challenging periods of high turbidity and during reduced water inflows from [the] Angat and Ipo dams," Maynilad Chief Operating Officer Randolph Estrellado said.

"This will greatly help in our effort to provide reliable water supply for our customers," he added.