A greening project conducted by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) at the Erchung Spillway has created a spacious outdoor recreation place for 6 million residents in the greater Taipei area. But environmentalists say that buidling such an expensive project on a flood plain could turn out to be a waste of time and money.
Years of engineering efforts, NT$1.34 billion, 24 local protests and 18 public hearings preceded the completion of the greening project at the end of last year.
The final result is that a dry riverbed in a 7.7km section of the spillway from Sanchung to Wuku in Taipei County, has been turned into a 324-hectare recreational area.
"Our greening engineering focusing on the maintenance of natural landscapes and ecological conservation won't affect the draining functions of the spillway at all," said Cheng Shean-rong (鄭顯榮), the director-general of the EPA's Bureau of Water Quality Protection.
According to Cheng, the project includes construction of a 214-hectare restored dry riverbed, 17 hectares of sport facilities, a 93-hectare wetland ecological area, a 20km bicycle circuit and 14km of embankment greening.
Officials said that the project focused on landscape beautification -- placing bushes, lawns, gardens, lotus ponds and green dikes in the dry riverbed to turn the spillway into a huge nature park.
According to the EPA, the new park is 12 times the size of Ta-an Forest Park in Taipei City, and increases the amount of green space in greater Taipei to 1.5m2 per person -- one and a half times what it was before the park was built.
Still, Taipei's green space is still far behind the 13.9m2 enjoyed by New Yorkers and the 12.7m2 now enjoyed by Parisians.
EPA officials compared their efforts to the foresight shown by New York officials when in 1856 they set aside an amazing 341 hectares for Central Park.
But "Taipei's Central Park" is not without its critics.
Lai Wei-chieh (
"What residents need is more spacious green areas in their local communities," Lai said.
Lai added that the project was a waste of time and money because facilities built by the EPA would be inundated during typhoon seasons.
"Better site management at the spillway to prevent illegal dumping would have been more realistic," Lai said.
EPA officials said that the project actually removed more than 15,000 tonnes of waste that had been dumped in the dry river bed.
EPA officials said that all mobile facilities could be removed easily once flood warnings were issued.
"Although we need to drag in lots of people to do so. It's still worth it to have a green area where residents can access the river easily," Cheng said.
In addition, statistics show that the river overflowed only four times between 1987 and 2002, Cheng said.
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