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Councilor slams `useless' sewage pumping facility

A Taipei City councilor yesterday criticized the city's Nanjing water pumping station over its non-functional wastewater interception facilities.

Taipei City Councilor Tsai Kun-lung (蔡坤龍) told reporters that statistics from the Public Works Department's Sewer Systems Office showed that the NT$30 million (US$920,000) station had intercepted no wastewater in the past two months.

"River conservation is a major part of Mayor Hau Lung-bin's (郝龍斌) city policies, but the useless interception station is causing wastewater to flow directly into the Keelung River," Cai said.

The station's inaction resulted from a wastewater intake that was 2.5m above the water level, Cai said.

He said the Sewer Systems Office and the project contractor should both be held responsible for the flawed design of the station, which was built in 2005.

He asked the Department of Government Ethics to investigate the matter within one month and determine whether the Sewer Systems Office had engaged in wrongful dealings with the contractor.

"The station was expensive, and now even more money will be needed to modify it so that it can actually operate," he said.

Sewer Systems Office staffer Liao Chun-hao (廖俊豪) said the design was not flawed, but used a conservative construction strategy to prevent damage to the system.

"In reviewing the tidal cycle, we found the water level to be 1.9m at flood tide," Liao said. "Add to that the base of the [intake] structure itself and the 2.5m distance was carefully calculated to be the ideal height for the intake."

If the wastewater intake was built at water level, silt would be washed into the interception pipes during flood-tides, causing costly damage, Liao said.

He said that the current levels of wastewater interception were due to a number of factors, including an increase of the population in the catchment area of the public wastewater treatment plant.

"At the time of construction the interception station worked well," he said.

He said the station was a phase project before the population connection reached 100 percent.

However, in response to Cai's criticism that his office should have foreseen the population increase, he admitted that adjustments should be made to improve the facility's performance.

He said his office would evaluate the structure and make adjustments within two months, either by lowering the wastewater intake or using pumps to deliver wastewater to the intake pipes.
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