Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-hsiang (施顏祥) said yesterday that phase one water rationing would continue to the end of this month at the very least, but he was hoping that further restrictions would not prove necessary. However, the government has not taken the possibility of increased rationing off the table, he said.
In phase one of rationing, water pressure is reduced from 11pm to 5am. In phase two rationing, water supplies for fountains and other non-essential uses such as cleaning streets and building exteriors would be banned, while supplies for swimming pools, car washes, saunas and operations that use 1,000m3 or more of water per month would be cut by 20 percent and supplies for industrial users reduced by 5 percent.
A La Nina weather pattern last year has led to reduced precipitation this spring, while the annual plum rains began later than usual. Weather forecasters have also predicted below average amounts of rain over the next two months.
“The ministry is now planning to maintain phase one water rationing till the end of this month, and would at most impose phase two, and not begin phase three water rationing at the end of June,” Shih said.
He said that recent days of plum rains had quenched the thirst of reservoirs nationwide a bit, but “not enough to lift the drought crisis.” Therefore, “we are still in a water rationing state,” he said.
However, he hopes phase two water rationing will not be necessary before the end of next month.
He was very optimistic that the government would not need to resort to phase three rationing, which entails cutting off supply to different areas of the country on a rotating basis. Before last weekend’s rains, his agency had warned that this might happen.
Speaking to a legislative committee meeting, Shih said the Water Resources Agency was considering charging higher water rates.
Under the proposed scheme, the four-tier pricing system would be expanded to five or six tiers and the agency would charge the higher rates to people and companies in the top tiers to discourage wasteful practices
At present, water rates range between NT$7.35 and NT$12.075 per 1,000 liters.
“The differential water rates proposal would require communication with the public, and will need some time before its implementation,” Shih said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater