Tainan dam dredging operations to start soon

The Executive Yuan (Cabinet) has announced a plan to set aside NT$34 billion to clear the massive amounts of sand, mud and driftwood lodged in the Tsengwen Reservoir and the Nanhua Reservoir in Tainan.

The details will be worked out at next week's meeting. The armed forces will also help with the operation to speed up the process.

More measures will be implemented after President Ma Ying-jeou declared a policy to regard maintaining steady water supply as a key national security issues.

Director-General Yang Wei-fu of the Water Resources Agency (WRA) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs said an estimated 1.2 billion cubic meters of sand and mud brought about by Typhoon Morakot which hit central and southern Taiwan in early August, has built up in the upstream mountainous area.

Over 400 million cubic meters of the substance have washed down to the downstream rivers, including Gaoping River, Laonung River and Chisan River, and ended up in water dams.

The Laonung River has carried some 91 million cubic meters of the substance and driftwood to the Tsengwen Reservoir, causing a water supply problem and leading to a suspension of irrigation for the first harvest next year on farmland in neighboring Chiayi and Tainan counties, Yang said.

He was speaking to reporters following a meeting of a cross-agency task force which is in charge of the dredging plan.

As part of the dredging project, about 65 million cubic meters of sand and mud will be removed from the reservoir upon the project's completion, slated for late November next year, Yang said.

Sand and rocks dug out from the reservoir will be stored at unused land owned by the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corp. for construction and for filling in land reclaimed from the sea, WRA Deputy Director General Wu Yueh-si said.

Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang presided over the meeting, which was attended by officials from the Council of Agriculture, the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Ministry of the Interior and the National Science Council, among others.

Of the NT$34 billion fund, about NT$26 billion will be allocated to desilt the Tsengwen Reservoir over the next six years and NT$8 billion to clean the Nanhua Reservoir.

Tsengwen Reservoir is Taiwan's largest facility of the kind and has an effective storage capacity of 596 million cubic meters.

Since Typhoon Morakot, no rain has fallen in southern Taiwan and the two reservoirs have not collected any more water, exacerbating the threat of water shortages for months ahead.

Tainan County Magistrate Su Huan-jhih warned that the water supply problem would develop into a food crisis if the two reservoirs could not be effectively and swiftly dredged, because rice cultivation for the coming spring harvest has been halted due to a lack of water for irrigation.

More frequent fallows will definitely push up rice prices in Taiwan, which have surged this year, Su said.

Taiwan Water Corp. announced yesterday a plan to improve the water intake facilities at Nanhua Reservoir.

Executives at the government-run enterprise said the project will help better utilize water resources for purifying operations even during typhoon season.

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