The Ministry of Economic Affairs has deployed 159 emergency wells and created an emergency desalinization plant to tackle a difficult water shortage the nation is facing, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) said yesterday.
The two resources would together contribute more than half a million tonnes of water to the nation’s daily supply, Tseng said after a meeting at the Central Emergency Operation Center focusing on the water situation in the nation.
By early next month, the emergency wells would be contributing 336,000 tonnes of water daily and the emergency desalinization plant in Hsinchu County would be contributing 200,000 tonnes, he said.
Photo: Taipei Times
Hsinchu, Miaoli and Changhua counties as well as Taichung have been placed on “orange alert” for a water shortage, while Tainan and Taoyuan as well as Chiayi County are on “yellow alert,” the ministry said.
Areas on yellow alert have their water pressure reduced and the public is encouraged to conserve water, while an orange alert entails limiting total water use as well as reducing the water pressure.
The government has also declared major irrigation stoppages in some areas and asked industrial water users to reduce consumption by 7 percent.
The emergency wells were dug years in advance, Water Resource Agency Deputy Director-General Wang Yi-feng (王藝峰) said by telephone.
However, construction on a network of pipes to connect the wells to the nation’s water system began only in August last year, Wang said.
“Back then, we did not know the drought was coming,” Wang said. “But we sped up the construction when we realized a drought was coming for sure, around late October.”
An additional 1,250 emergency wells have yet to be deployed nationwide, the agency said.
With the Lunar New Year around the corner, Tseng asked people to limit their water use during the traditional house cleaning in preparation for the new year.
“If everybody cleaned [their homes] all at once, it would affect the water pressure, so consider cleaning during off-peak times,” he said, suggesting people to “wipe more and wash less.”
Although agricultural use accounts for 70 percent of water use in Taiwan, “it is everybody’s responsibility to conserve water,” Wang said.
“Farmers have seen irrigation stoppages and industry is conserving as well. Now that we are tapping into more expensive water sources such as desalinization, it is paramount to treat water as a precious resource,” he said.
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