Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (
Residents in southern Taoyuan County currently have access to water once every three days.
"If my word is not kept, I will take full responsibility and stand down so that someone else can take up the post," she said.
She made no guarantee for northern Taoyuan, however.
"If a full water supply is not available for northern Taoyuan by Aug. 13, then the current mechanism -- in which water is supplied every two days -- will remain," Ho said.
After learning of Ho's offer to quit should the promise not be kept, Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said he would respect Ho's decision, but that he would keep supporting her in the meantime because she was attempting to solve the problem.
Hsieh said that solving the water supply problem in Taoyuan County was the government's priority, rather than worrying about which Cabinet member should take responsibility and step down.
"The past couple of days I have been asked, `Mr. Premier, who is going to resign for this.' I must say, it is not the time for us to talk about that when everyone in my Cabinet team is trying very hard to resume the water supply in Taoyuan County," he said.
Hsieh yesterday chaired a meeting at the Executive Yuan to discuss the problem. He later said that the government will spend NT$600 million (US$18.8 million) to build a water treatment plant capable of storing 800,000 tonnes of water. The construction of the plant is expected to be completed within two years.
In addition, NT$1.5 billion will be spent on maintaining and extending the Shihmen Reservoir and its immediate catchment area. Hsieh said that a new filtering system will be built, as well as a new outlet for pumping clean water as required.
Also, more vegetation will be planted in upstream areas and a ban on tree felling will be more strictly enforced, he said.
"It is ridiculous that we have so much water in the reservoir but the water is useless because it is too muddy. Why is it muddy? That is because we have not looked after the water or preserved the soil [in the catchment area]," Hsieh said.
"I think we have been taught a lesson and it is time for us to do something," he said.
In other developments, Taiwan Water Corporation (TWC) chairman Lee Wen-liang (李文良) yesterday warned that the water supply in greater Kaohsiung was close to the limit because of excess sediment in reservoirs. If heavy rain hit the area again within a short time, he said, the area could suffer serious problems with water supply.
Lee was speaking during a Kaohsiung City Council meeting in response to water purification problems relating to the Kaoping River network. Two typhoons in the space of three weeks brought a heavy volume of rain and stirred up sediment, as well as depositing silt and debris into reservoirs.
Lee said that the corporation was working on water purification in the area so that the supply for greater Kaohsiung would not be disrupted.
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