The Changhua County Government on Wednesday proposed measures to control pollutants in the catchment areas of two major irrigation canals, amid reports of soil pollution allegedly caused by the illegal discharge of effluent by local electroplating plants.
Changhua’s Environmental Protection Bureau said it would designate 1,350 hectares of land surrounding the East-West No. 2 and No. 3 Canal as a control area, in which the permissible discharge concentration levels of five metals — copper, zinc, nickel, cadmium and chromium — would be lowered by 200 to 2,000 percent to meet irrigation water standards.
Electroplating plants, the major contributor to pollution in the area, would have their operating licenses withdrawn if they fail to meet the new discharge standards or violate the Water Pollution Control Act (水汙染防治法), the bureau said, adding that it would not allow the establishment of new electroplating plants in the area.
The move was announced after 296 plots of farmland, measuring a total of 54.9 hectares, were on Monday found to contain excessive levels of heavy metals, the bureau said.
The Environmental Protection Administration has found a total of 1,285 polluted plots of land, measuring 218.4 hectares, since 2013, when it started a mass investigation of polluted farmlands in the county, the bureau added.
Farmers were ordered to let those lands lie fallow, and produce grown on the affected land were destroyed, it said.
However, environmental campaigners said the proposed measures were not enough. The Changhua County Environmental Protection Union said that it would take at least NT$1.5 billion (US$45.9 million) to conduct soil pollution remediation at the affected farmlands, excluding the tens of millions of New Taiwan dollars each year to subsidize farmers who are forced to leave their lands fallow.
Union secretary-general Shih Yueh-ying (施月英) said the bureau meant well with its initiative, but it is clueless about how much pollutant is actually discharged in the area and how to set a cap on pollutants.
While the designated control area is where farmlands are most polluted, the county government should put all farmlands and irrigation systems in the county under such regulation, Shih said.
The program is set to take effect by the end of this year at the earliest, the bureau said.
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