Water drawn from Nantou County’s Jiji Weir (集集攔河堰) to meet industrial demand from a naphtha cracker should be redirected to farmland once desalinated seawater becomes available later this month, environmental groups said yesterday, urging authorities to add such clauses when renewing the plant’s water-use contract this year.
Taiwan Hsinchu Foundation chairman Sam Lin (林聖崇) said the plant — built and operated by Formosa Petrochemical Corp in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) — began diverting water via the weir 30 years ago, sharing it with agricultural users in Changhua and Yunlin counties.
Although the plant has no water rights during the dry season — February to May — it continues to purchase water at low prices from the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Bureau of Industrial Parks, Lin said.
Photo: Liu Pin-chuan, Taipei Times
The competition for resources forced local farmers to rely on groundwater, while the diversion of river water by the weir has prevented aquifer replenishment in geologically fragile areas such as Ershuei (二水) and Sijhou (溪州) townships in Changhua County, he said.
This has led to severe land subsidence along the weir, particularly in Yunlin County’s Yuanchang Township (元長), where the ground has sunk by as much as 2m, raising safety concerns for the high-speed rail line running through the county, he added.
Changhua Environmental Protection Union secretary-general Shih Yueh-ying (施月英) said the plant’s massive water consumption has worsened fugitive dust in the region and could also threaten the habitat of white dolphins near the estuary of the Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪).
Formosa Petrochemical Corp should put its seawater desalination plant into operation this month as promised, she said, calling on water resource authorities to impose penalties if operations are postponed again.
Yunlin County Shallow Waters Aquaculture Association secretary-general Lin Jia-an (林家安) said that Formosa Petrochemical Corp received many government subsidies when constructing the naphtha cracker 30 years ago.
However, the corporation has since grown into a highly profitable global enterprise and should not be allowed to compete with farmers for subsidized water, he said.
Taiwan Water Resources Conservation Union chairwoman Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said that the authorities continue to allocate more than 200,000 tonnes of water to the plant during the dry season, despite its production capacity having declined over the past few years.
Given that 100,000 tonnes of desalinated seawater per day are expected to come online this month, while the plant’s average daily water use has been 204,000 tonnes over the past three years, the renewed contract should at least cap its allocation at 140,000 tonnes per day, Shih said, adding that the contract should also require an annual 10 percent reduction in the cap.
The Water Resources Agency said the new contract would include a dry-season water use plan and would require Formosa Petrochemical Corp to promptly activate its desalination facility.
Asked whether the naphtha cracker’s allocation would be cut by at least 100,000 tonnes, the agency said the 100,000 tonnes expected from desalination would be added to the overall supply portfolio before calculating distribution.
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