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Funds earmarked for improvement of Keelung River

The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) has earmarked NT$31.6 billion to implement the "Keelung River Overall Improvement Project" and has been conducting a series of measures to reduce flooding and protect the safety of residents in low-lying areas around the country, a CEPD spokesman said yesterday.

The spokesman said that as the country is prone to typhoons and often suffers damage from the strong wind and torrential rain brought by typhoons, the CEPD has made water management and flood prevention one of its main goals.

Noting that in the past the CEPD has focused its water treatment efforts on construction work, the spokesman said that to keep abreast of environmental protection trends, it had adjusted its strategy and adopted the measure of integrated catchment management with the aim of creating sustainable water resources.

PROTECTING RESIDENTS

Citing the "Keelung River Overall Improvement Project" as an example, the spokesman said the CEPD allocated NT$316 billion between 2002 and 2005 for the project, which he said includes measures to divert water from the upstream section of the river and to conduct dredging of the downstream section designed to protect the river from flooding for 200 years and protect the safety as well as property of the 2 million residents in the greater Taipei area.

The spokesman said that during the construction of the Yuansantze Diversion System -- the main part of the project -- in 2004, the system was activated three times to make emergency diversions to lower the high water level caused by a Sept. 11 rainstorm followed by typhoons Nock-ten and Nanmadol later that year.

FLOODWATER

When Typhoon Krosa hit the nation on Oct. 6 last year, another flood diversion was conducted to maintain a safe water level, the spokesman said, adding that up to 15.6 million tonnes of floodwater had been diverted into the sea.

From 2005 in central Taiwan, the government has implemented the third stage of a flood control construction project on Tali River (大里溪) in Tanzih Township (潭子) in Taichung County.

This project, which was constructed at a cost of NT$25.7 billion and stretches over 36.3km, is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

The government has budgeted NT$50 billion for a Kaoping River (高屏溪) treatment project to be implemented in stages between 2005 and 2010 for water resource management, water pollution prevention and drainage.
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