Taiwan Water Corp (Taiwater) yesterday said it has made no application to deregister the water source protection area around the Yufeng Dam (玉峰堰), which links to the Zengwen River (曾文溪) and supplies water to Tainan.
Environmental groups, along with Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Chen Gau-tzu (陳昭姿), yesterday held a news conference in Taipei to oppose the alleged deregistration plan.
The plan aims to deregister the river’s water quality and quantity protection zone following the completion of Taiwater’s supply system improvement project for a water purification plant in Tainan’s Shanshang District (山上) next month, they said.
Photo courtesy of the Tainan Environmental Protection Union
The project is divided into two parts: building a pipeline dedicated to the Southern Taiwan Science Park, and improving the overall water purification plant.
According to the Guidelines for Designation, Conversion and Revocation of Water (水質水量保護區劃定、變更及廢止作業要點), a water quality and quantity protection zone can be deregistered if the water is not for household or public use, Taiwan Water Resources Conservation Union chairwoman Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said.
That means Taiwater could apply for deregistration of the water source protection zone after the project is completed, as long as it provides proof that the revocation would not affect water quality and quantity, she said.
The zone was designated in 1983, covering a total area of 417km2.
When the Executive Yuan approved the project in 2018, environmental advocates had expressed concern that the project carried the hidden agenda of revoking or downgrading the zone’s protection status for land development.
At the news conference, union standing director Wu Li-hui (吳麗慧) said semiconductor manufacturers at the science park require high-quality water, even more purified than drinking water, making it unreasonable to revoke the zone’s protection status even if it is converted for industrial use.
Union standing director Tsai Chih-hung (蔡志宏) said the project is part of the forward-looking infrastructure development program aiming to enhance water use resilience.
Deregistering the zone would open the door to development projects in southwestern Tainan, where the environment is vulnerable due to sandstone formation and fault activity, he said.
Facilities such as recreation parks, livestock farms, business waste or excavated soil disposal sites could enter the region, Tsai said, adding that might contaminate water, undermine soil conservation, and reduce environmental tolerance to draught or flooding.
Hung Shu-mei (洪淑玫), a member of the Society of Wilderness’ Tainan branch, said that the water protection zone should not be deregistered, especially because it can support public water supply under extreme weather events.
The National Science and Technology Council’s Southern Taiwan Science Park Bureau said it values stable water quality and trusts the water supply authority’s deployment of water resources.
Taiwater said that the project is unrelated to deregistration of the zone, adding that it has made no application for deregistration at this stage.
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