Soil and other debris washed heavy rains into the Shihmen Reservoir, causing a suspension of the water supply to Taoyuan County, can be blamed on deforestation, farming and road construction in mountainous areas, the Cabinet said yesterday.
"Deforestation and overdevelopment are the reasons behind the land upstream from the Shihmen Dam to collapse, dumping over 20 million cubic meters of silt into the reservoir, and making the water so turbid that the county's four water treatment plants had to shut down for days," said Huang Hung-pin (黃宏斌), a professor at the National Taiwan University's Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering.
PHOTO: CNA
Huang was one of the academics accompanying Premier Yu Shyi-kun to disaster areas hardest hit by Typhoon Aere during a helicopter ride to Taoyuan and Hsinchu counties yesterday morning.
It took water authorities almost 16 days to fully restore the water supply in Taoyuan County by yesterday. Some areas of Taoyuan are still without tap water.
Economic Affairs Minister Ho Mei-yueh (
Cabinet Spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said that Yu recognized the efforts of the ministry and technicians made over the past 16 days in building and installing two pipes to divert water from the reservoir to another water treatment facility -- a project which will take six months to complete.
Chen blamed the delay on the bad weather, which made the wielding and cementing more difficult.
Jeng Fu-shu (鄭富書), a civil engineering professor at the National Taiwan University, said the amount of silt dumped in the reservoir by Typhoon Aere would take 15 years to settle, as the average amount of silt accumulated in the dam is 1.5 million cubic meters annually.
Despite the high amount of silt, Jeng said that the 50-year-old dam is still capable of providing water to the greater Taoyuan area if additional silt deposits are removed on an annual basis.
Echoing Jeng's and Huang's arguments, Minister Without Portfolio Lin Sheng-feng (林盛豐) blamed the reservoir's turbid water on soil conservation in the reservoir's water gathering area, totaling 763.4km2. The area covers Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Ilan counties.
Lin pointed out that the number of fruit farms upstream from the reservoir has seen a 44.6 percent increase between 1976 and 1998. Most of them are located on steep hillsides where farming is banned.
In a bid to solve the problem, Lin said that the Cabinet is drafting a special bill to cut down on or outlaw land development in mountainous, coastal and flood-prone areas. The bill would also recommend NT$100 billion in spending over the next 10 years on land-restoration projects. The bill would also offer incentives to residents living in those areas to relocate or to sell their land to the government.
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