Chen raises his glass to clean water

Recent improvements to the quality of tap water in Kaohsiung are "belated justice" for residents, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday.

At the opening ceremony of three new water-treatment plants held yesterday in Chengching Lake, Kaohsiung County, Chen said that the achievement was the first step toward balancing national development between the south and north.

"From now on, Kaohsiung residents can wipe away their tears, embrace good water and enjoy the belated justice," Chen said.

Chen said that Vice Premier Lin Hsin-yi (林信義) played a key role in overseeing the project. When Chen took over the nation's leadership in 2000, he discussed the issue with then premier Tang Fei (唐飛). At that time, Lin, who was Minister of Economic Affairs, promised Chen that the project would be completed within three years.

"I was initially worried about the obstacles we encountered," Chen said yesterday. "Fortunately, our determination conquered the seemingly impossible."

The government allocated a NT$15 billion in March this year for the three-year project. NT$4 billion remains unspent.

Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (林義夫) said the ambitious project was planned by both the Water Resources Agency and the state-run Taiwan Water Supply Corporation.

Major tasks included relocating water intakes to the Kaoping River (高屏溪), building three new water treatment plants, adopting advanced ozone disinfection technologies and building over water pipes connecting Nanhua Reservoir in Tainan County to the Kaoping River.

Lin said that all tasks were completed two months early.

Premier Yu Shyi-kun, who stood alongside Chen at the opening ceremony, stressed that determination was the decisive factor.

Yu said People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) served as Taiwan Provincial Governor for five years but failed to bring Kaohsiung residents good tap water.

For decades, water suppliers added excessive chlorine to disinfect raw water from the Kaoping River, which was polluted from both illegal dumping and waste water discharged from pig farms.

Since the discovery in July 2000 that toxic solvents were illegally being dumped in the Chishan River, which flows into Kaoping River, most residents have complained about the water's chemical odor and used it only for rinsing.

Most residents buy bottled spring water for drinking and cooking.

Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) said yesterday that the former provincial government planned in the 1990s to spend NT$18 million treating the polluted Kaoping River but failed.

In the past three years, the Cabinet's Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) relocated 470,000 pigs raised on farms along the Kaoping River, effectively cutting excrement pollutants discharged from farms.

Meanwhile, 2,000 residents from 12 townships in Tainan County yesterday demonstrated at the Nanhua Reservoir, saying that local development had been restrained for decades in order to protect water supplies. Some demonstrators jumped into the reservoir to express their and anger.

Tainan County Commissioner Wu Chien-pao (吳健保), who organized the demonstration, said that the central government should both lift the limitation and give affected residents appropriate compensation.