Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday attributed the turbidity of tap water in areas of the city following Typhoon Soudelor to poor soil and water conservation efforts upstream of Nanshih River (南勢溪), saying that water transferred to purification plants had given rise to the problem.
The poor quality of tap water sparked waves of panic buying in Taipei and New Taipei cities over the weekend.
Asked whether the Taipei City Government had been slow to take action to address the tainted water, Ko said that the city government is not at fault, as it has carried out extensive soil and water protection measures along the Beishih River (北勢溪), which flows into the reservoir.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
“This is not the first time Taipei has been hit by a typhoon of this magnitude, but the city’s raw water turbidity surpassed 30,000 nephelometric turbidity units [NTU] over the weekend, indicating a problem,” Ko said.
The city would ask the central government to inspect areas upstream of the Nanshih River and make the necessary improvements to the city’s water supplies, he said.
Taipei Water Department Commissioner Chen Chin-hsiang (陳錦祥) said that no water had been supplied from Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫) over the weekend, as city policy stipulates that water from Nanshih River be tapped first, and that water from the reservoir serve as a complement to cover the city’s water needs when necessary.
He said that as Nangshih River is governed by the Taipei Water Management Office, overseen by the Water Resources Agency, the city government can only offer the office suggestions on how to boost conservation efforts along the river.
He said the highest raw water turbidity the city had previously seen was 12,000 NTUs, recorded following Typhoon Soulik in 2013, which the department was then able to treat and continue the supply of clean water.
However, the department faced “great difficulty” treating contaminated water following Typhoon Soudelor, when water turbidity shot up from 10,000 NTUs at 7am on Saturday to 30,000 NTUs at 8am, forcing the departments in Chang Hsing, Gongguan and Jhihtan to limit water tapped from the Nanshih River, Chen said.
He said poor soil and water conservation measures led to numerous mudslides during Typhoon Soudelor, which likely contaminated water in the river, adding that access to New Taipei City’s Wulai District (烏來) — located downstream of the river — was still blocked as a result of mudslides as of press time last night.
Water quality was back to normal yesterday, with raw water and tap water turbidity dropping below 200 NTUs and 1 NTU respectively, Chen said.
However, Taipei Department of Health Secretary-General Hsu Chao-chen (許朝程) urged the public to boil water five minutes longer than they normally would over the next couple of days to eliminate the potentially pathogenic chloroform often associated with impurities in water.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS