MORE than two years after being threatened by
an oil spill, a new danger is looming in Guimaras province, this
time involving its drinking water.
Online news site Visayan Daily Star (www.visayandailystar.com)
reported that samples of water from wells showed above-normal
levels of lead in five villages on the island.
Provincial health officer Felicito Lozarita
said the samplings conducted April 16 showed that lead content
in water sources in Nueva Valencia and Sibunag towns were above
the standard of .01 mg per liter.
Lozarita said four villages in Nueva Valencia
and one in Sibunag registered higher than normal levels. He
identified the villages as Algeria in Sibunag (.05 mg/l) and San
Antonio (.82 mg/l), Igdarapdap (.011 mg/l), Cabalagnan (.013
mg/l) and Panubulon (.022 mg/l) in Nueva Valencia.
He said chronic exposure to high levels of
lead is toxic and could lead to serious ailments and death, but
the current levels are not that significant to lead to serious
ailments, at least for now.
Lozarita presented the results of the
samplings during the second anniversary of the August 2006 Solar
I oil spill last week.
He said they still could not ascertain if the increase in
lead levels was a result of the oil spill. He said they would
still correlate the results of the water samplings with blood
samples on residents exposed to bunker fuel taken after the oil
spill and this year.
