Residents from Chungho and Panchiao demonstrated outside Taipei City Hall yesterday to protest the city government's refusal to provide more water from the Feitsui Reservoir to the Taipei County cities.
The city currently offers an average of 50,000 tonnes of water daily by request to part of the Panchiao area. A major part of the Chungho area receives on average of 290,000 tonnes of water daily.
Roughly 100 protesters, most of them from Panchiao, were led by DPP legislators Lai Chin-lin (賴勁麟) and Lee Wen-chung (李文忠).
They carried white cloth strips that stated, "Let me drink water from the Feitsui Reservoir" and "Share good water with good friends."
City spokesperson Wu Yu-sheng (
After failing to see eye-to-eye on the issue, both sides agreed to hold a public hearing on the matter at the Legislative Yuan within a week.
Lee said the dispute over whether county residents should have greater access to the reservoir -- which is located in Taipei County but had been built and is being managed by the city -- has been a long-standing issue.
"It sounds ridiculous when the city claims it doesn't know anything about it," he said. "Don't forget that the reservoir is located on county land and takes up one third of the county's total area. Why don't more county residents deserve to share the water with Taipei City?"
Lai said he was very disappointed with the way the city has handled the matter.
"What we're asking for is not much, but the city has simply turned a blind eye to our plight," he said.
But Tsay yesterday dismissed the notion that the city was being stingy with its water supply.
"The reservoir provides the greater Taipei area with an average of 3.1 million tonnes of water every day, about 30 percent of which -- or 1 million tonnes -- goes to Taipei County," he said.
The water department official also noted that, since Aug. 21, the city has been providing the Keelung and Shihchi areas with an additional 30,000 tonnes of water daily to help alleviate their water shortages.
Tsay also said that a central government plan to provide the entire Chungho area and part of the Panchiao area with more water from the Feitsui Reservoir wasn't scheduled to go into effect until 2003.
With more bickering than progress taking place yesterday, residents grew impatient.
Watching the two parties failing to come to an agreement on the issue, Panchiao representative Chang Hsien-che (張顯徹) yelled out, "I don't care about the numbers or politics -- do you want to give us the water or don't you?"
No one answered Chang.
Another Taipei City official said yesterday that all residents may have to make do with less water in the coming months.
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