A biodiversity survey of Taipei County’s Sindian Creek (新店溪) showed that some of the fish species thought to be extinct have reappeared in the creek, evidence of improved water quality in the Tamsui River (淡水河) Estuary, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said.
Yang Hsi-nan (楊喜男), a researcher at the EPA’s Environmental Analysis Laboratory, said they were particularly surprised to find three fish species that did not appear in Sindian Creek in the 2005 survey, including the Monk goby and Awaous ocellaris. Evidence of the Monk goby had not been found for more than 20 years.
“They are anadromous fish,” Yang said. “The fact they were able to travel from the Tamsui River Estuary to Sindian’s Bitan Bridge (碧潭橋) shows that the water quality is good overall.”
The laboratory’s director-general Roam Gwo-dong (阮國棟) attributed the reappearance of the fish species to the sewage treatment plants in Bali (八里) and Dihua (迪化), which have helped raise the density of dissolved oxygen in the water.
Yang said the biodiversity survey is one of the methods used by scientists to gauge the impact of environmental changes on animals. He said the laboratory has researched ways to analyze the water quality and one of them is to select several different types of fish, shellfish and algae to test the acute toxicity of the water.
“If you place any of them in the water and it perishes in about four days, that shows the water is severely poisoned,” Yang said.
Meanwhile, Yang said the laboratory is conducting experiments using water fleas to gauge the chronic toxicity in the water. This involves testing for organic chemicals, environmental hormones and antibiotics.
“We put them [water fleas] in the water for 28 days and see if they become deformed or androgynous,” he said.
The results of the experiments will help the EPA formulate methods to examine the quality of ambient water from science parks, which are scheduled to be promulgated next year, Yang said.
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