The implementation of a surcharge mechanism on large water users is being “carefully structured,” Water Resource Agency Director-General Lai Chien-hsin (賴建信) told a news conference yesterday at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Taipei.
Industries have different water usage patterns that need to be taken into account before such a surcharge can be levied, Lai said.
“Some industries will find it harder to reduce water usage than others,” Lai said. “It would not be fair to place the same surcharge across the board.”
Photo: CNA
The threshold for what would qualify as a large water user also remains to be determined, he said.
An amendment to the Water Act (水利法) in 2016 empowered the agency to levy a surcharge on industrial users that use more than 1,000m3 of water a day.
However, five years and more than 60 conferences later, there is still “no timeline” for implementation, Lai said.
“We have to take into consideration the nature of the business, whether it is during the wet or the dry season, and how much recycled water is being used,” he said. “Businesses that are operating with difficulty should also get a grace period.”
As a water shortage intensifies, business attitude toward a large water users’ surcharge has softened, Water Resource Agency Deputy Director-General Wang Yi-feng (王藝峰) said.
“They’re willing to pay a surcharge if they receive continued stable access to water,” Wang said.
Water in Taiwan is cheap compared with other countries, he said.
“A cubic meter of water is NT$10,” Wang said. “You can take a couple of baths with that if you do not fill up your bathtub all the way.”
The price of water is six times as much in some other Asian countries, he said.
“However, we have to be careful about raising prices,” he said. “We have to think of the impact on disadvantaged people.”
The ministry is planning a series of infrastructure projects to increase Taiwan’s water supply to combat unpredictable rainfall caused by climate change, Wang said.
The projects would cost a combined NT$160 billion (US$5.66 billion) over the next 10 years and would add 1 million tonnes to Taiwan’s annual water supply, he said.
“We need to clean the silt buildup in our dams, build new reservoirs, capture groundwater, and build reclamation and desalination plants,” Wang said.
While northern Taiwan no longer faces shortages, the “most difficult hour yet” is at hand for the rest of Taiwan, he said.
Miaoli County, Hsinchu city and county, and Taichung are on “orange alert” with round-the-clock water pressure reduction and mandatory 11 percent daily water use reduction for industrial users, he said, adding that the areas face a “red alert,” with rolling outages, if conditions continue to worsen.
The Zengwen Reservoir (曾文水庫), Taiwan’s largest, is at 15 percent capacity, he said.
Substantial rainfall is not expected until May, the beginning of the wet season.
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