To curb the use of agricultural water resources for industrial purposes, the nation’s 17 irrigation associations should be turned into a government agency, conservationists said yesterday.
The call echos one made by Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) on Tuesday.
“The approval of irrigation associations is all it takes to use farm water for industrial purposes, and excessive water consumption by factories has led to water shortages. Environmental groups give full support to Su’s proposal so farms will no longer be robbed of water,” Taiwan Water Resources Conservation Union standing director Wu Li-hui (吳麗慧) said.
The associations can sell water and groundwater because they have water rights, but it is not reasonable for them to profit by selling public resources while being outside of the government’s control, Wu said.
“Irrigation associations can make as much as NT$250 million (US$7.66 million) simply by selling water to the Tainan Science Park, which makes the management of irrigation systems a lucrative business. However, no one can hold irrigation associations accountable for how they use the money they make,” Wu said.
“Formosa Plastics Group’s naphtha cracker [in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮)] is able to maintain a consistent water supply without the use of purified seawater even during dry seasons, when area farmers do not have enough water. We suspect that irrigation associations might have diverted farm water for the cracker plant,” Changhua Medical Alliance director Huang Chiu-feng (黃秋鳳) said.
Water is a public asset and should be managed by the government, but at present these groups can sell water and lease properties that were once irrigation channels, Huang said.
“What irrigation associations have been doing is destroying agriculture to develop the industrial sector. While the naphtha cracker enjoys a stable water supply, farmers in Yunlin and Changhua counties — the nation’s largest agricultural producers — have to drain groundwater to survive dry seasons. That might explain the severity of ground subsidence there,” said Lin Fu-yuan (林富源), a Yunlin County farmer.
The government must stand firm on the plan to bring the associations under its purview, farmers and conservationists said.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS