SAN MANUEL – The San Roque dam, the highest dam in southeast Asia and the second highest in the whole of Asia, has overshot its normal high water level of 280 meters by 0.12 meter at 8 a.m. last Wednesday but it is not yet spilling some of its excess water down the lowlands of Pangasinan.

This was assured early Wednesday by Antonio Calaycay of the National Power Corporation’s flood forecasting and warning system based at San Roque dam, who said he does not see the possibility of the water being released soon considering that rains have stopped in the Upper Agno river basin.

Calaycay said only when the water reaches the maximum level of 290 meters will the NPC perhaps allow the release of some of the excess water down the spillway, passing through the lower stream of the Agno river in Pangasinan.

NPC is ruling out any chance of opening the dam’s spillway gate even if Ambuklao and Binga dams in the Upper Agno river Basin are continuously releasing their excess water which is being absorbed though by the far biggerSan Roque dam.

Calaycay said the San Roque Power Corporation, which operates the San Roque dam, is using all the water that accumulates in the reservoir to generate 400 megawatts of electricity, which it is channeling to the Luzon power grid.

While generating electricity thus, San Roque throws down more than 200 cubic meters of water per second to the lowlands, through its turbine outlets underground, thus the chance of exceeding the 290 meter maximum level is very nil, he explained

Calaycay said even if the water level reaches the spilling level of 290 meters if there are no prolonged rains forthcoming, San Roque would rather keep its water than release it down through the spillway as it needs maximum water for power generation.

The recent installation of a new transmission line of the National Transmission Commission by Japan’s Marubeni, one of the part-owners of San Roque, now enables the latter to produce 400 megawatts of power, many times higher than the 100 megawatts it was producing since it was commissioned in 2003.

Tom Valdez, spokesman of SRPC, said that although San Roque is being blamed even for the flood that happened two weeks ago in Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija; and Moncada, Tarlac, he stoutly claims there was not a time this year that the dam released excess water through the spillway.