The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday launched its annual showcase for soil and groundwater protection in Taipei, drawing hundreds of global delegates to learn about the agency’s efforts to prevent soil and water contamination and the nation’s pollution-monitoring technologies.
The three-day exhibition, dubbed the International Conference of Remediation and Management of Soil and Groundwater Contaminated Sites, highlights partnerships between the EPA, local precision manufacturing companies and academic experts to develop and apply new environmental protection technologies.
For example, National Taiwan University associate professor Huang Chien-fen (黃千芬), an expert on sediment surveying, is guiding the agency on how to operate a sub-bottom profiler — a machine that performs real-time data analysis on sediments to find areas with excessive levels of heavy metals.
Agency official Chang Chih-wei (張志偉) said that the device helps the EPA locate areas that need to be excavated to prevent heavy metals from being consumed by freshwater animals or tapped for irrigation and entering the food chain.
Regarding dioxin sampling, EPA Environmental Analysis Laboratory division head Chen Yuan-wu (陳元武) said the agency is collaborating with a private firm to develop a continuous centrifugal system to sample dioxins in groundwater, wastewater and drinking water from purification plants.
The machine uses filter paper and foam to extract dioxins in water samples before frozen samples undergo detailed analysis, he said.
The machine, although developed over a period of more than three years, cost about NT$500,000 (US$16,150), making it more time-saving than its predecessors and more cost-efficient than its Japanese counterparts, which cost twice as much, he said.
On managing defunct factories, agency official Sun Tung-ching (孫冬京) said plant or land owners must pass the EPA’s soil analysis before they can set up factories in other places or lease their land to other operators.
There are about 120,000 defunct plants nationwide, she said.
SHIPS, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES: The ministry has announced changes to varied transportation industries taking effect soon, with a number of effects for passengers Beginning next month, the post office is canceling signature upon delivery and written inquiry services for international registered small packets in accordance with the new policy of the Universal Postal Union, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The new policy does not apply to packets that are to be delivered to China, the ministry said. Senders of international registered small packets would receive a NT$10 rebate on postage if the packets are sent from Jan. 1 to March 31, it added. The ministry said that three other policies are also scheduled to take effect next month. International cruise ship operators
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PLANNED: The suspect visited the crime scene before the killings, seeking information on how to access the roof, and had extensively researched a 2014 stabbing incident The suspect in a stabbing attack that killed three people and injured 11 in Taipei on Friday had planned the assault and set fires at other locations earlier in the day, law enforcement officials said yesterday. National Police Agency (NPA) Director-General Chang Jung-hsin (張榮興) said the suspect, a 27-year-old man named Chang Wen (張文), began the attacks at 3:40pm, first setting off smoke bombs on a road, damaging cars and motorbikes. Earlier, Chang Wen set fire to a rental room where he was staying on Gongyuan Road in Zhongzheng District (中正), Chang Jung-hsin said. The suspect later threw smoke grenades near two exits
The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency yesterday launched a gift box to market honey “certified by a Formosan black bear” in appreciation of a beekeeper’s amicable interaction with a honey-thieving bear. Beekeeper Chih Ming-chen (池明鎮) in January inspected his bee farm in Hualien County’s Jhuosi Township (卓溪) and found that more than 20 beehives had been destroyed and many hives were eaten, with bear droppings and paw prints near the destroyed hives, the agency said. Chih returned to the farm to move the remaining beehives away that evening when he encountered a Formosan black bear only 20m away, the agency said. The bear
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