Three Taipei mayoral candidates promised to demarcate the city’s Yangmingshan National Park (陽明山國家公園) as a water-quality protection area if elected, but Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who is seeking re-election, has declined, the Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union said yesterday.
At the union’s request, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Pasuya Yao (姚文智) and independent candidate Lee Si-kuen (李錫錕) signed a letter of intent, while independent candidate Wu E-yang (吳萼洋) had not yet responded, the union told a news conference.
Water samples collected from four purification plants in Shilin District (士林), which includes parts of the park, show elevated readings of nine substances, including chloride salt, sulfates and nitrate nitrogen, Tsaoshan Ecology, Culture and History Alliance president Wen Hai-chen (文海珍) said, citing a survey by the Taipei Water Department from September last year to August.
Photo: CNA
Taipei’s water supply mainly comes from the Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫) in New Taipei City’s Shiding District (石碇), with development restricted in its catchment area, but the catchment areas of Yangmingshan and Neishuangsi (內雙溪) in Shilin, which supply about 2.5 percent of Taipei’s water, are not protected, union convener Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said.
According to Article 11 of the Water Supply Act (自來水法), activities such as logging, mining and raising poultry for profit, as well as pollution-producing factories, garbage incinerators and golf courses, are banned within a water-quality protection area, Chen said, adding that the rights of Yangmingshan residents would not be affected, as they do not conduct such activities.
Ko’s campaign office spokesperson Lin Kun-feng (林昆鋒) said the Taipei administration was committed to protecting water quality, but said signing a letter does not equate to taking responsibility for a policy.
There are certainly some “commercial activities” in the Yangmingshan area, but the readings might be caused by the area’s volcanic geology, Lin said.
Yangmingshan National Park covers about 11,000 hectares, and making it a water quality protection area would further limit local people’s activities, Lin said, adding that the city government needs to collect more opinions from residents.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS