The Water Resources Agency yesterday defended a proposed tunnel that would connect the Nanshi Creek (南勢溪) in New Taipei City’s Wulai District (烏來) to the Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) in Taoyuan amid concerns over the project’s possible environmental and social costs.
The project is undergoing an environmental impact assessment and construction would not begin without the approval of Wulai residents, the agency said in a statement.
The agency’s comments came after environmental groups and members of Wulai’s indigenous community voiced their opposition to the project in a report published by the Chinese-language United Daily News.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
The Taiwan Ecological Engineering Development Foundation called on the agency to cancel plans for the 17.3km tunnel, saying that it would have a “devastating” effect on the Nanshi Creek and the protected species that inhabit it, the paper reported.
A local Atayal resident said he feared construction work for the tunnel could force members of Wulai’s indigenous community off their land, or trigger devastating landslides similar to those that killed at least 471 people in the mountain village of Siaolin (小林) in Kaohsiung during Typhoon Morakot in 2009.
Construction work for the Wulai tunnel would have a minimal effect on the local ecology, as well as the water supply for the Greater Taipei area, the agency said.
It said it chose the Nanshi Creek for the project, as it is likely to have sufficient rainfall to supply other parts of northern Taiwan, including Taoyuan and Hsinchu, to relieve potential water shortages there in addition supplying the Greater Taipei region.
The agency calls the scheme “cross-regional water resource dispatch.”
Construction is expected to cost NT$18.6 billion (US$615.5 million) and take four-and-a-half years, it said.
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