To curb the use of agricultural water resources for industrial purposes, the nation’s 17 irrigation associations should be turned into a government agency, conservationists said yesterday.
The call echos one made by Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) on Tuesday.
“The approval of irrigation associations is all it takes to use farm water for industrial purposes, and excessive water consumption by factories has led to water shortages. Environmental groups give full support to Su’s proposal so farms will no longer be robbed of water,” Taiwan Water Resources Conservation Union standing director Wu Li-hui (吳麗慧) said.
The associations can sell water and groundwater because they have water rights, but it is not reasonable for them to profit by selling public resources while being outside of the government’s control, Wu said.
“Irrigation associations can make as much as NT$250 million (US$7.66 million) simply by selling water to the Tainan Science Park, which makes the management of irrigation systems a lucrative business. However, no one can hold irrigation associations accountable for how they use the money they make,” Wu said.
“Formosa Plastics Group’s naphtha cracker [in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮)] is able to maintain a consistent water supply without the use of purified seawater even during dry seasons, when area farmers do not have enough water. We suspect that irrigation associations might have diverted farm water for the cracker plant,” Changhua Medical Alliance director Huang Chiu-feng (黃秋鳳) said.
Water is a public asset and should be managed by the government, but at present these groups can sell water and lease properties that were once irrigation channels, Huang said.
“What irrigation associations have been doing is destroying agriculture to develop the industrial sector. While the naphtha cracker enjoys a stable water supply, farmers in Yunlin and Changhua counties — the nation’s largest agricultural producers — have to drain groundwater to survive dry seasons. That might explain the severity of ground subsidence there,” said Lin Fu-yuan (林富源), a Yunlin County farmer.
The government must stand firm on the plan to bring the associations under its purview, farmers and conservationists said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei MRT is to begin accepting mobile payment services in the fall, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said on Saturday. When the company finishes the installation of new payment units at ticketing gates in October, MRT passengers can use credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, the operator said. In addition, the MRT would also provide QR payment codes — which would be compatible with Line Pay, Jkopay, iPass Money, PXPay Plus, EasyWallet, iCash Pay, Taiwan Pay and Taishin Pay — to access the railway system. Currently, passengers can access the Taipei MRT by buying a single-journey token or using EasyCard,
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