The boundaries between Taipei and New Taipei City lead to unfairness and inefficiency, Green Party-Social Democratic Party Alliance legislative candidate Tseng Po-yu (曾柏瑜) said yesterday, calling for the Sindian River’s (新店溪) watershed to be annexed by Taipei.
“The watershed’s residents have shouldered the responsibility of maintaining and protecting the watershed, but are not allowed to enjoy the benefit of using the water,” said Tseng, a student leader and spokesman during last year’s Sunflower movement who is running in New Taipei City’s 11th legislative district, which encompasses the watershed.
Taipei’s tap water is provided by the watershed’s Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫), which is managed by the Taipei City Government.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
She said that the Taipei Water Department has been unwilling to service most of the mountainous region because of high distribution costs, forcing residents to use water from Taoyuan.
The department’s refusal to provide services is unfair, because the area’s residents are subject to restrictions that aim to maintain water purity, she said.
“A line of water is all that separates ‘heaven and Earth,’” Humanistic Education Foundation chairman and lifelong Sindian resident Shih Ying (史英) said, referring to the Jingmei River (景美溪), which separates Sindian from Taipei.
Taipei’s unwillingness to provide running water to the area reflects long-standing discrepancies between local government services in Taipei and New Taipei City, with New Taipei City residents treated as “second-class citizens,” Shih said.
“We can see it, but we can’t drink it,” Shih said, adding that even though the Taipei Water Department’s Sindian water processing facilities are visible from his home, residents of his neighborhood have been forced to pay to have water trucked in, which also causes traffic congestion.
While residents of the watershed are eligible to receive “compensatory rebates” for land usage restrictions, administrative red tape ensures that the funds are used as part of the budget of local government district offices, rather than being distributed directly to residents, Tseng said.
She added that the lack of integration had also led to unfair enforcement of water purity regulations because of the Taipei Water Department’s lack of familiarity with local conditions.
While regulations forbid the area’s tea farmers from expanding the scope of their plantings, farmers are allowed to plant new tea bushes to replace old ones. However, farmers who replace old bushes are sometimes fined by the Taipei Water Department, because it relies solely on aerial photographs to enforce the regulations, fining farmers for any new plantings, she said, adding that the department’s lack of personnel on the ground makes it difficult for farmers to appeal such fines.
She said that because the New Taipei City Government remains responsible for regulating other aspects of land use, it is difficult for the two cities to comprehensively address problems such as turbid water following typhoons.
She also said that the separate administrations also create inconvenience for about 40 percent of Sindian’s residents who commute to Taipei daily, stating that poor communication between the administrations has created a bottleneck along a major artery whose width halves after it crosses the border between Sindian and Taipei.
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