I came across this news that 2 of Davao’s watersheds are found to be contaminated with pesticides. They are the Talamo-Lapidas and Panigan Tamugan watersheds. These are 2 dams where the people of Davao get their tap water from.

Davao prides itself as a big exporter of fruits. It has huge tracts of pineapple, mango, papaya and banana plantations. The fruit export industry in the city gives a lot of jobs to the locals and big money for the government in the form of taxes.

But there is a negative effect to these developments. The study reports that the pesticides that were found in the watersheds are from the use of pesticides in the fruit plantations.

The pesticides are dissolved in rain water and seeped down to the ground water which runs off to the watersheds. What’s worse is that they found out that the pesticides content in the watersheds contain chemicals banned by the government.

What can we do with the pesticides? If the fruit growers in Davao will not use pesticides, can they still produce export-quality fruits? But if they continue to use pesticides, how many years before the water resources in Davao become completely contaminated with pesticides?

We need to take care of our environment mainly because if we don’t, then our health is at stake. This is happening already. Just consider how many people in the 1900’s died of cancer?

It is only now that people die left and right because of cancer. One reason is that today, there are more chemicals that we put into our bodies everyday. Today almost everything that we get in contact with has chemicals.

One of them may be coming out of our faucets or showers. Pesticides and water contamination are two big problems that we need to find solutions for. Now.