A group of about 300 protesters yesterday gathered at “tofu rocks” along Hsinchu County’s Toucian River (頭前溪) to demand clean drinking water for the county’s residents.
The protesters stood on the riverbank to form the Chinese character for the word “water” (水, shui), and captured the scene using a drone.
A group of local environmental activists tested water and demonstrated the effects of water-borne parasites on water quality.
Photo provided by the Society of Wilderness’ Hsinchu Qinzi Group
Event organizers invited local politicians from across party lines to participate, saying that water quality was everyone’s concern.
“We refuse to drink wastewater. The government must amend the Water Pollution Control Act [水污染防治法],” the organizers said, adding that water sources for drinking and irrigation must be clearly separated from factory and sewage runoffs.
The group chose yesterday for the protest in the hopes that with elections only a month away, politicians would be willing to promise to improve water quality, they said.
“Toucian River supplies water to 750,000 people, but as soon as winter arrives, water levels drop. One-fourth of the water that remains is wastewater,” they said.
The river supplies 200,000 tonnes of water daily to the Longen weir (隆恩堰) downstream from tofu rocks, but further upstream 25,000 tonnes of wastewater is pumped into the river every day, they said.
The ratio of wastewater increases in the winter when water levels fall, they added.
The organizers and other local activists had been for two-and-a-half years calling on the government to install a wastewater pipe for industrial runoff, but officials had insisted water quality was not a problem, they said.
Establishing a water treatment facility and installing a wastewater pipe would be in the interests of local residents and industry, which would be spared from protests, they said.
“If they pipe out the wastewater to an off-site water-treatment facility it would make management of the river easier, and would take the pressure off the government,” they said.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
TRAVEL CONVENIENCE: The program is to shorten wait times while passing through airport checks and would start for Taiwanese from January next year Japan is to launch a new program to expedite entry procedures for Taiwanese starting from January next year. The Japanese government is planning to introduce new rules to shorten the time it takes foreign travelers to pass through immigration, thereby attracting more tourists to visit, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported yesterday. An airport preclearance program would be implemented to allow foreign travelers to finish some screenings at their departure airport’s terminals and undergo simple confirmation procedures upon arrival, it said. The program would initially be applied to travelers from Taiwan from January next year and could be extended to travelers from elsewhere depending
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
The US military is confident that it would win a war against China if a conflict broke out in the Taiwan Strait, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Charles Q. Brown said at a forum on Saturday. During an interview at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado, on Saturday, CNN reporter Jennifer Griffin asked Brown about the possible outcome of a US-China war in the Taiwan Strait. “Can the US win a war against China if Beijing tries to take Taiwan, from your military perspective?” Griffin asked. “I’m fully confident in our forces. You should be too. We