With Tainan currently in the first-stage water rationing, members of the Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union and Housewives for Health yesterday criticized a proposal made by the Southern Taiwan Science Park to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to tap 250,000 tonnes of water per day to cover demand from wafer manufacturers in the park, saying that the plan would lead to a more severe water shortage in the region’s farming sector.
An environmental impact assessment approved by the agency in 2011 set the cap for the park’s daily water consumption at 200,000 tonnes.
In addition to the plan to increase its daily water consumption, the state-run science park also proposed increasing its daily electricity consumption from 1.52 million kilowatts to 2.22 million kilowatts.
Park representatives said the park hopes to obtain the water it asked for from the Tainan Department of Irrigation and Engineering to cover an expected water shortage in 2021 for operations at the park, which is one of the nation’s photovoltaic industry hubs.
Park officials highlighted the importance of the water demand from the photovoltaic sector, saying the industry is one of the nation’s most robust and produces higher margins than the agricultural sector.
Society of Wilderness member Homer Chang (張讚合) panned the comparison, saying that it is not a matter of who makes more profits, but one that pertains the livelihood of all farmers, whose work supplying food plays a pivotal role in upholding the nation’s security.
It is exactly because of the industry’s ability to create higher margins that the park should learn to source its own water, even if it means paying a larger water bill, instead of asking for water allocated for agriculture, he said.
Housewives for Health south division head Chiu Chun-hua (邱春華) said increasing water and electricity consumption means pollutants such as volatile organic compounds and heavy metals emitted by the park would also increase.
Environmental Impact Assessment Committee member Chen Mei-lien (陳美蓮) asked park officials to elaborate on why the manufacturing process of smaller, 12-inch wafers requires more water than larger ones, while others asked the park to clarify which operations are expected to generate the demand for water and electricity, and specify the amount needed by each category of operation in its Report on the Difference in Environmental Impact.
Other committee members said that the park should improve its efforts to develop alternative water sources, for example by resuming its collaboration with Yong Kang, a Tainan-based water recycling company, to reprocess its outflow, for which the Water Resources Agency subsidizes NT$5 million (US$158,450).
In addition, the committee said that the park should explain how it calculated its wastewater recycling rate to substantiate a statement in the report that said the park had achieved an overall water recycling rate of 76.25 percent.
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