The quality of tap water supplied to residents in Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County has improved significantly since a major national project was completed late last year and the water supplier's performance remains steady, the Environmental Pro-tection Administration (EPA) said yesterday.
After completing an inspection of Taiwan Water Supply Corp's seventh district management department in Cheng Ching Lake, Kaohsiung County, EPA officials said that residents in the south could be confident of the quality of tap water.
"According to our local bureaus in the city and the county, samples of tap water taken in the past few months have all passed the test," said Ho Soon-ching (
Yang Shui-yuan (
To improve the quality of tap water in Kaohsiung, the central government budgeted NT$15 billion in 2001 to have intake points in Kaoping River moved upstream and to build three advanced treatment plants.
In the past, Yang said, the unsatisfactory quality of tap water in Kaohsiung could be attributed to excessive levels of chloride, which was added to water to kill bacteria. Sometimes the chloride caused the formation of trihalomethanes, which is thought to be a possible carcinogen.
"Now we use much less chloride. The samples we took tested negative for trihalomethanes," Yang said.
Wang Mao-sung (王茂松), director of Kaohsiung County's Bureau of Environmental Protection, said residents' confidence in tap water would be restored. Many residents buy filtered water from street vendors at the price of NT$10 for 20 liter.
Meanwhile, at a meeting conducted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday, officials said the drought in the north had been relieved by recent rains. Water levels at major reservoirs are satisfactory, officials said.
"What we have now can sustain us until the end of May," said Chen Shen-hsien (陳伸賢), director-gene-ral of the Water Resources Agency.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS