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New spa law aims to increase sustainablity

The Legislative Yuan approved the Spa Law (溫泉法) on Tuesday to keep the nation's hot-springs resources at a Aboriginal level with an eye to develop the spa industry as a national tourist attraction and protect the rights of Aboriginals -- upstream stakeholders who have long been overlooked.

The law prohibits unlicensed spa proprietors from over-exploitation of hot-spring water and should serve to halt the current problems such as improper construction of pipe and pumping systems, misuse of land and unlawful construction near fountainheads.

The regulation requires prospective spa-operating entrepreneurs to obtain a special license through the Ministry of Economic Affairs before they may seek a license from county or city governments.

Licensees must provide customers with detailed information about their hot spring, including mineral attributes, temperature and advanced warning of possible health side-effects.

The license review process includes an inspection of the mineral composition of the spring water -- a process which should detect whether there has been fraudulent use of artificial mineral powder.

Prospective licensees are furthermore obligated to obtain a permit to use the hot spring resource in compliance with water conservancy and mining exploitation laws.

The law concludes that current proprietors should receive assistance from authorities to comply with the law, and gives proprietors a seven-year moratorium in which to complete the process.

The Spa Law, states that all mineral springs are national resources and require business persons either profiting from the spa businesses or spring-water agriculture to pay by volume for the resource. Violators will face a maximum fine of NT$300,000.

Some funds collected from the usage fee are earmarked for resource conservation and educational research, the law dictates.

Other funds are to go back to the people who live at the headwaters. In consideration of the fact that over 95 percent of the island's hot springs are scattered among 30 Aboriginal districts of the mountainous areas, the law asserted that at least one-third of pay-by-volume funds collected from the government must be allocated to Cabinet programs aimed at improving the standard of living of Aboriginal citizens.

The law additionally protects the interests of aborigines by ordering that upstream inhabitants must be included in plans that involve use of hot springs.

One article of the law states that the government help Aborigines set up their own spa businesses. It also assures labor rights for those working in the industry.

S.L. Chang (張學勞), former director of the Tourism Bureau, said that the Spa Law will enhance the quality of Taiwan's spa tourism by allowing the government to regulate the 112 non-licensed proprietors, which is nearly half of the country's 225 spas.

"The required legal procedure will provide a basis for the government's management and surveillance of the industry and prevent excessive exploitation of the resource by business interests," Chang told a legislative committee when the bill was in review.

Proprietors expressed their endorsement of the legislation.

"The spa resort industry has been concerned for a long time that loose regulation of the the natural resource would lead to overuse and eventual exhaustion of spring water," said Han Chin Hsiao-yeh (韓秦秀葉), a leading member of the hot spa industry association in Chiaohsi, Ilan County.

Huang Chin-chuan (黃清泉), a leader of another regional spa resort industry association in Peitou, pledged that his members will pay the pay-by-volume fee as long as the regulation would provide protection of the exploitation right for those who abide by the law.

Huang nevertheless expressed doubts. "The current over-exploitation by illegitimate profiteers leads us to worry about water-resource depletion within the seven-year grace period," he said.
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