Water supplies to parts of Taipei and New Taipei City were suspended last night as a result of soaring raw water turbidity caused by Typhoon Dujuan, the Taipei Water Department said.
Department Deputy Commissioner Chen Man-li (陳曼莉) said raw water turbidity at the Zhitan Water Purification Plant in Taipei, which supplies tap water to the two municipalities, was more than 13,000 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) as of 4:30pm.
Under the department’s new standard operating procedures, water purification plants must reduce operations if the raw water turbidity reaches 6,000 NTU to 12,000 NTUs and shut down completely if the turbidity exceeds 12,000 NTU.
Photo: Chu Tse-wei, Taipei Times
Three of the Zhitan plant’s six purifiers had stopped operating as of press time last night, and the others were scheduled to stop later on, Chen said, advising residents to store water and turn off water pumps.
The first phase of the water outage in districts of Taipei, which began at 7pm, affected 3,700 households in mountainous areas in Shilin (士林) and Tianmu (天母), 15,000 households in Beitou (北投), 6,500 households in Wenshan (文山) and Muzha (木柵), Chen said.
The second phase, which began at 10pm, included 15,000 households in central Shilin (士林), 4,000 in Zhongshan (中山) and Dazhi (大直), and 8,600 households in Neihu (內湖), she added.
The third phase, which was scheduled to begin at 1am today, included 9,500 households in Taipei’s Zhongzheng (中正), 6,500 households in Wenshan (文山) and Jingmei (景美), 15,000 in Wanhua (萬華), 12,000 in Daan (大安), 6,000 in Nangang (南港),11,000 in Datong (大同), 8,300 in central Zhongshan (中山), 9,000 in Songshan (松山), and 12,000 in Xinyi (信義) and parts of Sanchong (三重) in New Taipei City, Chen said.
Supplies to both cities would be halted completely if all phases of the water outages continued for more than 24 hours.
The amount of rainfall at the Nanshih River (南勢溪) in New Taipei City’s Wulai District (烏來), which is located upstream of the Zhitan plant, reached 170mm within three hours, causing water turbidity to soar, Chen said.
The heavy rains brought by Typhoon Dujuan were likely to increase the water turbidity levels, the department said.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) came under fire last month for not ordering a suspension of water supply early enough during Typhoon Soudelor, which dumped near record volumes of rainfall on Taipei.
For days after the passage of Soudelor, tap water in many parts of the city remained a brownish color, forcing many people to turn to bottled water.
Many households also had to hire workers to drain and clean their rooftop water tanks, which had collected large amounts of sediment carried by city water pipes.
A review of the problem suggested that the city’s water supply should have been suspended after the turbidity levels rose beyond the capacity of the city’s main water treatment plant.
Additional reporting by CNA
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