The Kaohsiung County Government yesterday released a water-quality-examination report showing that purple groundwater discovered in a village of Tzukuan township (梓官鄉) does in fact contain toxic chemicals exceeding national groundwater-safety standards.
Officials warned residents living in neighboring areas against drinking groundwater to avoid being contaminated.
Residents of Tashe village (
Since the pollution case was exposed, residents have stopped using the strange-smelling groundwater. Villagers said that they have limited groundwater use to rinsing and irrigating for years.
Since the purple water had been discovered, vegetable farmers have complained about the extra expense of having to use tap water for irrigation.
According to the report released by the county government yesterday, water samples contained levels of manganese, nitrate, chloride and other chemicals in excess of national groundwater safety standards.
Environmental officials, however, said that the pollution posed no immediate threat to residents' health.
Environmental officials are now looking for the source of the pollutants.
"We don't think that the contamination resulted from a discharge of industrial wastewater because the polluted groundwater is localized in a small area where two families live," said Lin Tsan-huei (
Lin said that no volatile organic compounds were detected in groundwater samples collected from the village.
The environmental section chief said that industrial wastewater discharged from chemical factories usually contains high concentrations of these compounds.
Lin added that the purple color of the groundwater could be attributed to the presence of manganese, one of the heavy metals detected.
"We will keep monitoring the quality of groundwater in the village every month to see if the polluted area is expanding," Lin said.
Environmental officials said that investigating suspicious factories nearby, including closed dye-houses, would be a top priority in the future.
Environmental officials yesterday notified the township office of the examination's results and asked the township to remind residents of the danger of drinking polluted groundwater.
Environmental officials said they have been promoting the idea of avoiding groundwater use for decades but that their message received little attention.
Recent studies in the US suggest that excessive consumption of manganese by infants under 24 months of age may interfere with their brain chemistry, leading to negative behavioral effects.
Toxicologists also recommend that residents avoid drinking manganese-tainted groundwater.
"The long-term accumulation of manganese in the human body may cause diseases relating to dysfunction of the central nervous system," Chan Chang-Chuan (
Chan added that simply boiling water would not get rid of the contaminating manganese.
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