EPA chief vows to protect water sources in south

Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), head of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), yesterday inspected water source protection areas and several pig farms in the Tsengwen River (曾文溪) basin in southern Taiwan, vowing to oppose any projects that would reduce the size of water source protection areas.

Hau inspected two water treatment plants along the Tsengwen, checking to see if water quality had improved since the relocation of pigs from farms along the river to other areas.

EPA officials said that the quality of water in some parts of the Tsengwen had improved after the pigs were moved.

Last December, the Ministry of Economic Affairs proposed reducing an area along the Tsengwen that is protected as a source of drinking to 91.7 percent of its original size.

The project was sent to the Executive Yuan for approval. The proposal angered more than 100 owners of pig farms in the 48km2 zone who were to be excluded from the protection area.

The farmers were afraid this would mean that compensation promised previously by the EPA for the closure of their farms would be unavailable.

The EPA, which opposed the plan, communicated with the economic affairs ministry last month, arguing that future development in the area to be excluded might harm the environment along a part of the river which has been protected since the early 1980s.

EPA officials said that it was decided on March 28 that future projects pertaining to reducing the size of water source protection areas must undergo environmental impact assessments.

Meanwhile, the EPA has notified owners of 730 hog farms along the river that compensation projects to help them relocate 83,000 hogs at a cost of NT$800 million will continue.

Pig farms located along five major rivers in Taiwan have discharged excrement into those rivers for decades, causing serious water pollution. Beside the Tsengwen, the other major rivers affected are the Kaoping (高屏溪), Tamshui (淡水河), Touchien (頭前溪) and Tachia (大甲溪).

According to the EPA's Bureau of Water Quality Protection (水保處), the agency had budgeted NT$6.45 billion to treat the five major rivers, and part of the money was to be used to compensate farmers.

EPA officials said that closing pig farms along the five major rivers would not hurt the hog industry because the pig population in the vicinity of the rivers accounts for just 8 percent of the total industry in Taiwan.

Hau yesterday also visited pig farmers in several townships in Kaohsiung County, including Chihshan (旗山) and Meinung (美濃). These pig farms are located upstream from the Kaoping River, one of main drinking water sources for a million residents in the Kaohsiung metropolitan area.

In Meinung, where a controversial waste incinerator is located, local anti-incinerator activists from the Meinung Environmental Protection Union (美濃環保聯盟) urged Hau to look into the community's incinerator. The activists told Hau that drinking water sources in a protected area were damaged by dioxins released from the incinerator, as well as by toxic bottom ashes from the incinerator which were dumped into the nearby river.

Meinung residents filed a lawsuit last August against the owners of the incinerator and their waste handlers. The case has since been taken over by Kaohsiung County district prosecutors.

Prosecutors have said that one of the key points of concern was that the incinerator was built in an area that previously was a buffer zone for the upper reaches of the Kaoping River, where construction was prohibited. The incinerator is still operating.