Robin Winkler of Wild at Heart alerted me to a new blog on the Hushan Dam project....Plans were first laid to submerge You-cing Valley in December 1994. Located in the Hushan area, 10 km south-east of Douliu City in Yunlin County, the valley would be filled with water diverted from the Cing-shui River and dammed just north of Hushan Village. The resulting reservoir would, according to developers, provide the means to relieve Yunlin County of its shortage of agricultural and domestic water, and mitigate the serious land subsidence that had occurred through excessive pumping of groundwater. More than ten years later, however, the dam still exists only on paper, and a growing number of people are fighting to keep it that way.
Dams are yet another symptom of Taiwan's development paradigm that always calls for "build more" rather than "use less." It's sad, because the commitment to recycling here has really paid off, indicating that the government could easily get people to commit to conservation of water and energy if it approached the topic with the right combination of carrot and stick.
Good luck with the blog, and the anti-dam effort.
[Taiwan] [dams] [water]
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