A developer in Hualien County yesterday failed to gain approval for a hotel to use spring water, with regulators citing concerns over potential damage to groundwater systems.
The Promised Land Resort uses water from the Hualien River (花蓮溪) and it applied to use water from natural springs for hotel facilities, waterways, gardening and other purposes.
However, the Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) environmental impact assessment (EIA) committee rejected the application due to concerns about groundwater resources.
Representatives of the developer said that using water from the Hualien River was no better than using water from springs.
The resort passed EIA reviews in 1998 to develop a 133-hectare property, but only a 250-room hotel complex has been built on 6 hectares of land over the past 18 years.
The application to use alternative water sources was part of an expansion plan to develop vacant areas with a variety of recreational facilities and an additional 1,756 rooms.
The committee said the developer failed to propose measures to maintain groundwater in the area and it did not have reliable means to measure groundwater levels and quality.
The developer was asked to avoid massive development that might damage groundwater resources.
The resort operator had promised not to tap groundwater, but the Hualien Environmental Protection Bureau said using water from natural springs amounted to using groundwater indirectly.
The county government authorized the developer to use water from a spring, because the spring is recognized as surface water, but the spring is actually groundwater rising to the surface, the bureau said.
“The existence of springs indicates rich groundwater resources in the area. Large-scale construction and ground-grading work should be avoided whenever possible to prevent damaging groundwater,” committee member Yu Fan-chieh (游繁結) said. “Buildings should be constructed taking into account geographical features, but it appears that the resort development would unavoidably damage groundwater.”
“High groundwater levels in the area mean there is risk of soil liquefaction, putting buildings at risk of sliding on liquefied soil,” committee member Liu Shi-ping (劉希平) said. “The developer must be cautious when developing the area.”
“The monitoring data the developer cited was collected from 2011 to 2013, meaning that the committee could not use them as a credible source,” Citizen of the Earth researcher Huang Ching-ting (黃靖庭) said. “The developer’s report was unclear in terms of the amount of water it planned to use and its estimation of environmental impact.”
“The water source issue is complicated,” Huang said. “We do not want the resort to use groundwater or river water, because both pose environmental problems considering the massive water consumption of the hotel.”
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