An educational park about deep sea water opened yesterday in Hualien County as a base to promote wider utilization of the resource.
The facilities, established by the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection’s Hualien Branch, include two centers for deep sea water product certification and education, as well as a water quality laboratory, branch director Huang Shu-chen (黃淑貞) said.
Deep sea water generally refers to sea water from below 200m, where almost no plankton can survive. It is thus almost germ-free.
The certification services are expected to boost the deep sea water industry, while the educational center has been given the mission of helping the public better understand the resource, Huang added. The research laboratory will serve as a base for future studies on inspection of deep sea water quality as well as a “core” for research and development of deep sea water product certification, she said.
The bureau has established 31 national standards for deep sea water inspection following a 2006 program launched by the Executive Yuan to develop the industry, Huang said.
The coverage of the standards was extended in 2010 to various products grown or processed in deep sea water, while certification standards for six other products, from bottled drinking water and sports drinks to salt, were released in May last year.
Three local deep sea water companies, which currently have products on the -market, but are not making profits, said they hoped the “blue gold” industry would be more diverse and sustainable with the government’s assistance and support.
Hualien and Taitung counties are seen as the nation’s best areas for tapping into the oceanic resource.
Facilities for obtaining deep sea water have been completed in Taitung and the industry will be focused in eastern Taiwan, said Lin Yu-chih, a senior official of the Cabinet-level Eastern Taiwan Joint Services Center.
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