While dust from arid river beds during dry season has long compromised air quality in central and eastern Taiwan, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday touted its preliminary success in riverbed dust control with a cost-effective “step island plantation” method.
Responsibility for the dust problem at certain rivers has yet to be identified, however, since the pollution may not be a completely natural occurrence.
“In the past, dust suppression techniques at dried riverbeds such as gravel mulching and straw mulching have been tried, but the riverbed dust problem has only become worse over the years,” said Hsiao Hui-chuan (蕭慧娟), director-general of the EPA’s Air Quality Protection and Noise Control.
The riverbed dust situation is worst during the two dry seasons — November to December and February to March — when northeastern fronts sweep the island, she said.
In 2002 in Yunlin County’s Lunbei (崙背) and Hsienhsi (線西) townships, dust from the Chuoshui River (濁水溪) led to 14 percent of all days where coarse airborne pollutant particles, or particulate matters smaller than 10 micrometers, were over safety guideline limits. By last year the figure climbed to 27 percent, Hsiao said.
“This shows that previous mulching efforts had little effect,” she said.
Hsiao said the EPA began experimenting last year with the step island plantation method to curb dust problems at the Chuoshui River — said to have the most serious dust problem in the nation.
“The method has proven to be most effective the EPA has tried,” she said.
The method employs sand-trapping nets built onto river beds to create sufficient mounds of sand for grasses to grow and grab hold of the sand, Hsiao said, adding that within three to four months, the nets’ average sand collection was 35m³ to 51.73m³.
When asked if the river dusts were entirely natural pollutants, department technician Cecilia Swei (隋婉君) said a weir — or small dam — upstream, as well as the Sixth Naphtha Cracker (六輕) plant located at Mailiao (麥寮) in Yunlin County, had significantly contributed to the dust problem.
“Because the weir traps larger rocks of the river in its upper stream, and because the Sixth Naphtha Crackers plant extracts massive amounts of underground water for factory use, the Chuoshui River is both dry and full of sand,” Swei said.
Still, Hsiao said there was no plan to ask the plant to reimburse the community for the pollution local residents suffer.
“We just haven’t really evaluated how much [the plant] has contributed to the pollution yet,” she said.
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS