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Rivers pass EPA inspections for boat races

While water quality in rivers around the nation may not be good enough for people to swim in, most rivers are suitable for this weekend’s Dragon Boat Festival races, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday.

“Of the 19 locations that will host dragon boat competitions, 10 have River Pollution Indexes [RPI] that indicate intermediate pollution, two are mildly polluted, while seven are unpolluted,” EPA Water Quality Protection Director-­General Chen Hsien-heng (陳咸亨) said.

Chen said that because rowers will not have direct contact with the water, the definition of “waters suitable for dragon boat rowing” is that the water “isn’t oxygen-­deficient [and therefore] does not smell.”

In a more quantifiable definition, this means that the oxygen saturation, or dissolved oxygen (DO) level, exceeds 2mg per liter of water, Chen said, adding that the 19 dragon boat competition sites have dissolved oxygen levels of between 2.1 mg per liter and 9.1 mg per liter.

Dissolved oxygen is an indicator of water quality, as oxygen in the water supports aquatic life. A level of less than 5 mg per liter can cause distress to organisms living in the water.

“To make water activities possible, the EPA has spent a lot of effort and money on cleaning up the nation’s rivers by working on building a comprehensive sewage system and utilizing filtering facilities such as water treatment plants, as well as constructing wetlands in the meantime,” Chen said.

In recent years, the administration’s inspection bureau has been checking for illegal pipelines that go directly from factories into rivers or oceans without first treating wastewater, he said.

However, Chen said that ­although Taiwan’s river water ­quality has improved lately, most rivers are still unsuitable for swimming, let alone drinking.

As such, Chen said that though festivity sites have passed inspections, “people are advised to stay in their boats and rinse their mouths with mineral water if river water gets into their mouths.”
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