"I'm going to jump in the Tamsui!"
That used to be a threat, but now it's a joke--the river is so dirty even suicides avoid it.
And if it's allowed to keep on getting dirtier, all of us, whether we jump in or not, will be threatened.
This April, the Environmental Protection Bureau in the Department of Health presented its "Recovery Project of the Tamsui River Watershed Area" to the Executive Yuan for approval. The plan calls for the river to become reoxygenated and to lose its odor by 1991 and for its water constituent levels to reach acceptable standards by 1995 (see chart). Premier Yu Kuo-hwa, president of the Executive Yuan, expressed his strong concern for the matter, directed the relevant agencies to take concerted action, and designated the Department of Health as the lead agency for overall planning and implementation.
The Tamsui River basin covers a 2,700-sq.-km. area in Taipei City and Taipei and Taoyuan counties, an area with a population of 4.6 million. . . . How could we let such an important river become so dirty?
Have you ever thought where the dirty water goes every day from our sinks, toilets, and bathtubs? From our washing machines? How about the bags of garbage and trash? Dead cats and dogs? There's more.
The answers are pretty much the same: Most of it, either directly or indirectly (via rain sewers, for example, or runoff from rubbish dumps) winds up in the river. The Environmental Protection Bureau has identified over twenty types of pollutants in the Tamsui river system, and the oxygen content of the water in the river's middle and lower reaches approaches zero.
Is the Tamsui River one big sink?
Originally, of course not.
A river should function as a kind of central cooling system for the surrounding urban areas, regulating the temperature, carrying the dirty air out to sea, and providing flood control, irrigation, and aquatic resource benefits. But a river that has been overstuffed with trash not only fails to offer these gifts, but may fiercely counterattack: Have you noticed how the rainy season floods in Sanchung and Wuku have been growing more and more serious? How our water supply catchments have been steadily receding? Nor is a river that one must hold one's nose to cross any object of pride for a modern, international city.
Faced with this counterattack, how are we planning to clean up the river?
"The road to recovery naturally begins with intercepting the flow of pollutants," says Chuang Chin-yuan, director of the Environmental Protection Bureau, adding that the clean-up project focuses on the three most serious sources of pollution: household sewage, refuse runoff water, and industrial waste water.
In fact, work on a sanitary sewerage system has been going on in the city for a dozen or so years, but because of inadequate resources and unwillingness on the part of homeowners to foot the installation costs, households have been connected up in just a few areas.
As part of the current project, the Health Department plans to build an interception system first, at a cost of NT$28 billion (around US$875 million) to be completed by 1995. Although the interception system will be able to carry 80 percent of the city's domestic sewage, "household sewage lines will still need to be put in, even after the interception system is completed," says T. T. Sung, director of the Taipei Sewerage Engineering Department.
Meanwhile, the Council for Economic Planning and Development has allocated NT$40 billion in profits from the state-run China Petroleum Corporation to solve the problem of the river's second most serious source of pollution--refuse. The Taipei Sewerage Engineering Department will open bidding on an NT$100 million project to prevent runoff from the Neihu refuse dump and to stabilize its slopes. In addition, construction of incineration facilities has begun, and four locations in Taipei and Taoyuan counties have been selected as sites for sanitary refuse burial lots, although work on the lots has not yet commenced.
As to the problem of industrial waste water, industrial waste discharge standards have been established by environmental authorities over the past two years, and a joint investigative squad has been formed by the national, provincial, and municipal governments to take enforcement action against the seven hundred or more factories that pollute the Tamsui.
Simultaneously with the abovementioned steps, coordination of action among agencies must be strengthened. The vertical duties of each agency in the overall plan are quite clear, "but the agencies also have to keep in contact horizontally so that they can all work together as a whole," stresses Wu You-hwa, a professor at National Taiwan University's Institute of Environmental Engineering.
Finances are an important factor in facilitating coordination. The money put up by the national government has solved the problem at present, but some people worry that managing and maintaining the facilities will present a problem in the future. Asks Legislative Yuan Member Chao Shao-k'ang: "What happens after the NT$28 billion budget for the sanitary sewer is used up?"
Ouyang Ch'iao-huei, a professor of civil engineering at National Central University, says that the primary thing is to avoid errors in construction and planning, which can entail needless expenses. For example, he says, the effect of the sanitary sewerage system on the local ecology and particularly on the offshore waters of the Taiwan Strait, where the sewage is to be discharged, must be carefully considered. The National Science Council examined just these questions in a study it recently conducted which it hopes will assist in policy making and in reducing possible future social costs.
"We're not just cleaning up a sewer, where can you can say 'dredge it' and that's that," Professor Ouyang explains. "This river needs planned, long-term rehabilitation."
Health in this case means many things. The Environmental Protection Bureau has established future utilization goals for various sections of the river (see map), such as irrigation, recreation, and public use. . . but the most practical short-term aim is--stopping the river from smelling during the summer within four years. To achieve even this much, the government will have to invest substantial amounts of manpower and capital; as to swimming, fishing, and returning the river to its original state, "those things will require a few concessions on everyone's part," says the ecologist Ma Yi-kung.
What kind of concessions?
The most important, says Lin Yao-sung, a zoology professor at National Taiwan University, is reducing development along the river's banks: builders must keep their hands off the two environmental protection areas in the Hsientu Plain.
And then there's each one of us--
Are you willing to separate out combustible from noncombustible refuse for the incinerator? To scrub a little harder with biodegradable detergent? And when the sanitary sewer comes to your neighborhood, will you fill out the application form to be hooked up? If your family runs a factory, will you pay the costs of pollution control equipment? Or will you set aside money for the fines?
If we want a clean river, we must start by raising our own quality of life.
[Picture]
What Are the Major Pollutants?
●Domestic sewage
●Mining and industrial waste water: electroplating, chemical, and metal surface treatment, ceramic kilns, and shipbreaking.
●Waste water from the livestock and fishing industries: aquaculture, pig farms, and duck farms.
●Service industries: medical examinations, the photography industry (developing chemicals), laundries.
●Refuse dumping, slippage, and runoff.
●Pesticides and fertilizers.
●Over-development and over-construction on hillsides (erosion)
●Dams (retard the flow of the river, producing silt and sediment)
●Particulates and acid rain.
Pollution Conditions in the Tamsui River Watershed (1987)
Categories of Use of the Tamsui River Watershed (1995)
[Picture Caption]
The nation has a need for environmental engineers.
Treating waste water before it is released into the river can reduce the Tamsui's pollution. Pictured is the Tihua water treatment plant.
The major pollutant of the Tamsui is household waste water.
Waste water will flow through this trunkline once the interception system is completed.
Waste water from the livestock industry is also a major pollutant.
Underground factories along the banks of the Tamsui need to be cracked down on.
The refuse dump at Futehkeng is covered with impermeable cloth.
The river also faces pressure from the crowds that visit its banks.
Treating waste water before it is released into the river can reduce the Tamsui's pollution. Pictured is the Tihua water treatment plant.
The major pollutant of the Tamsui is household waste water.
Waste water will flow through this trunkline once the interception system is completed.
Waste water from the livestock industry is also a major pollutant.
Underground factories along the banks of the Tamsui need to be cracked down on.
The refuse dump at Futehkeng is covered with impermeable cloth.
Pollution Conditions in the Tamsui River Watershed 1987.
The river also faces pressure from the crowds that visit its banks.
@List.jpg?w=522&h=410&mode=crop&format=webp&quality=80)
