The government has cleared southern Taiwan’s three major reservoirs of driftwood left behind by Typhoon Morakot after the storm battered the region in August, the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Water Resources Agency said yesterday.
About 70,000 tonnes of driftwood was removed from the Zengwun Reservoir, Nanhua Reservoir and Wushantou Reservoir, 57,000 tonnes of which was cleared from the Zengwun reservoir alone, the agency said.
The agency said it removed the driftwood in a three-stage process.
The Forestry Bureau first collected all the driftwood with economic value, which accounted for less than 10 percent of the 70,000 tonnes.
The public was then given the opportunity to use it and the remaining wood was put up for sale through public tenders.
The remaining driftwood, which was mostly crushed, was sold to gardening businesses to be used as organic fertilizer or fuel, the agency said. Some of the driftwood was also used by mushroom farms as a planting medium.
The agency said it could provide advise to the winning bidders on how to effectively use the driftwood.
Since Typhoon Morakot, the three southern reservoirs have faced a severe silt problem that has greatly reduced their water storage capacity.
The government intends to set aside NT$54 billion (US$1.7 billion) over six years to dredge the reservoirs to stabilize the erratic water supply in the Tainan and Kaohsiung areas.
The agency said it would also continue to clear away driftwood from the reservoirs’ upstream watersheds to prevent any more from entering the reservoirs.
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