Private companies can now go into certain classified post-disaster zones to pick up precious wood that has been washed onto former farmlands or residential areas, helping clean up the zones by shipping the materials away, the Council of Agriculture’s (COA) Forestry Bureau yesterday said.
“Because so much driftwood was washed onto farmlands by [Typhoon] Morakot, we had to allocate all local government resources to clean them out. Now we welcome privately owned firms to help us in the cleanup, and use the wood for use in biomass fuel, creative arts or paper pulps,” bureau section chief Lee Chien-lin (李建霖) said.
The bureau made the announcement in response to vehement complaints by Morakot victims, who have questioned officials as to why wood was considered government property even though it had buried their homes and could be sold for up to NT$100 million (US$3 million) per devastated village.
PHOTO: HUANG LIANG-CHIEH, TAIPEI TIMES
Meanwhile, the bureau said that since Morakot struck, it has been monitoring two barrier lakes that have raised public concern because of their threat to nearby villages.
“We want to let the public know that we have been monitoring two barrier lakes — one in Kaohsiung County’s Namasiya Township (那瑪夏), and the other in Taitung County’s Jinfong Township (金峰), 24 hours a day since they formed,” the bureau’s watershed management committee chief Ku Pei-sen (顧培森) said.
In addition to taking satellite and helicopter images of the two lakes, the bureau has sent local management personnel to the sites to investigate their properties, Ku said.
“After the investigations, ditches have been dug in both lakes to drain the water, so that now the lakes are about 80 centimeters deep, with no danger of bursting onto nearby villages,” he said.
As of Thursday, the estimated agricultural losses from Morakot had reached NT$16.4 billion, nearing the record amount for losses from a storm, which was set in 1996.
The COA said the typhoon, which pummeled Taiwan between Aug. 7 and Aug. 9, caused serious damage to the agricultural sector in 11 counties, with Pingtung, Kaohsiung and Chiayi counties in southern Taiwan the hardest hit.
Losses from Morakot rank second only to the NT$18 billion in agricultural losses caused by Typhoon Herb that struck Taiwan in 1996.
The COA put damage to crops at NT$4.93 billion, with 28 percent of the crops on 82,408 hectares of farmland wiped out or washed away.
Bananas suffered the heaviest damage, with 6,396 hectares ravaged by strong winds and flooding, followed by papayas, guavas, rice, bamboo shoots, orchids, custard apples and leafy vegetables. Bee losses amounted to NT$7.49 million.
The storm also took a heavy toll on animal farms, killing 148,273 pigs, nearly 6.11 million chickens and about 1.54 million ducks, causing losses of NT$1.48 billion, the COA said.
Damage to the aquaculture sector totaled NT$4.17 billion, the highest in 19 years, with stock in some 6,942 hectares of fishponds in coastal areas washed away, it said.
The tallies also show that a total of 5,405 hectares of farmland had been either washed away or inundated, mostly in Pingtung, Kaohsiung and Chiayi counties, bringing total farmland losses to NT$4.77 billion.
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