Wow. Making the rounds since last night is the news, not exactly unknown, that the KMT government is totally despicable. The Min. of Economic Affairs purchased internet keywords, including the names of anti-nuclear activists, to promote its pro-nuclear propaganda:
The anti-nuclear activists from various civic groups discovered that when they searched for their own names on Google, Yahoo and other search engines, a pro-nuclear power Web site (anuclear-safety.twenergy.org.tw) operated by the ministry will appear as the first suggested Web site.With a government like this, how can anyone trust the safety and financial assurances of these selfsame pro-nuke bureaucrats? Speaking of safety, Reuters reported that the first nuke plant was leaking water:
As the Web site’s content is clearly in contrast with the activists’ beliefs about nuclear power, the anti-nuclear advocates, including Nuclear-Free Homeland Alliance executive director Lee Cho-han (李卓翰), Tokyo-based Taiwanese anti-nuclear writer Liu Li-erh (劉黎兒) and Green Consumers Foundation chairman Jay Fang (方儉), among others, expressed anger and disgust about the advertising link.
The linkage was first discovered by Lee last week when he was searching for his own name on Google. He immediately contacted Google and Yahoo on the same day, asking them to take down the advertisement.
The Bureau of Energy said on Tuesday that it had bought the keyword advertisement on popular search engines, linking to a total of 92 keywords — including 29 names of people who often spoke publicly about nuclear power.
A nuclear power plant in Taiwan may have been leaking radioactive water for three years, according to a report published by the government's watchdog, adding to uncertainty over the fate of a new fourth nuclear power plant.Don't you feel re-assured now? The bad news out of Fukushima continues -- last month plumes of steam were observed emanating from one of the damaged units, meaning that it is possible something is fissioning in there. We have many of the same conditions here that Fukushima does, from a government and political party maniacally committed to nuclear power to the same set of quake and tsunami zones. There could hardly be anything dumber than building nuclear power plants in a place beset by quakes, tsunamis, and possible bombing and missile attacks, but the government of Taiwan put in four. With no place to store the waste.
The First Nuclear Power Plant, located at Shihmen in a remote northern coastal location but not far from densely populated Taipei, has been leaking toxic water from storage pools of two reactors, said the watchdog, called the Control Yuan.
An official of Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), which operates the island's nuclear power plants, said the water did not come from the storage pools, but may have come from condensation or water used for cleaning up the floor.
Speaking of the environment, the government is relaxing development restrictions around reservoirs. The Liberty Times says:
行政院院會昨通過水土保持法部分條文修正草案，未來水庫集水區內除須特別保護者劃定為「特定水土保持區」外，其餘水庫集水區可進行開發；已劃定為山坡地範圍的土地，經報行政院核定公告即可變更。但環保團體痛批此法為「亡國之法」，台灣會完蛋。This blogpost, forwarded to me by a local environmentalist, gives more details. Originally as many of my readers know, development was forbidden across the catchment area in its entirety. However, the Water Bureau felt that this was having a negative impact on the economy (hahahaha) by which it meant a negative impact on pockets filled by land development under the benevolent gaze of the construction-industrial state. Gravel and soil digging will also be permitted, according to this piece.
The Executive Yuan yesterday passed the draft amendment of certain provisions of the Soil and Water Conservation Act. Except for future reservoir catchment areas requiring special protection designated as a "Soil and Water Conservation Area", the reservoir catchment area can be developed and will be designated as slopeland areas. The Executive Yuan for approval and notice of the changes. But environmental groups criticized this move as the "subjugation of the law," saying that Taiwan will be finished.
Thus, now the term "Soil and Water Conservation Area" will cover only those areas such as streams and slopes with severe landslide threat. As if developers won't ignore that the way they always do. The result, according to the blogger, is that just 17% of catchment areas will be protected, leaving 83% -- 1.72 million hectares -- for developers to ensorcel that land using that special alchemical brew by which public land is turned into private gold.
The blogger goes on to note that only Baihe and Wushantou reservoirs will have entirely protected catchment areas. The destruction is going to be immense.
UPDATE: Don't miss Fagan's comments below.
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Daily Links:
- DON'T MISS: Excellent IPS piece by longtime Taiwan reporter and commentator Dennis Engbarth on the Services Pact and J Michael's piece on how reporters covering the protests against the forced evictions are being manhandled and blocked by the police.
- China prepares for psy-ops in war with Taiwan
- Only in China: A private zoo in Henan puts Tibetan mastiff in cage, labels it a lion
- 30,000 Pinoys line up for jobs in Taiwan as ban on hiring is lifted.
- Chinese herbal medicines can cause cancer. D'oh.
- How China is poaching skilled physicians from Taiwan: Commonwealth
- From Donovan Smith of ICRT, another 'Only in Taichung' story:
"Last Friday marked the opening of the “City Govt Tourist Night Market” featuring in the ballpark of 400 booths, amusement rides and more covering over 11,000 square metres. Billed as ‘Taiwan’s most expensive night market’ and located by the posh and fashionable Qiqi district, the market was an instant hit as crowds poured in to check out the newest city attraction.
Aside from the unexpectedly large crowds creating more traffic and garbage than was expected, the market had one significant problem--it wasn’t legal, and the ‘city govt’ portion of the name related to the street name and area of its location, not any connection to the city govt itself. The city had rejected their application on the ground that the proposed market was to be nearly 7 times larger than what is allowed in a residential district. Undeterred, organizers forged ahead.
City inspectors were ready on Friday, and immediately issued NT$60,000 in fines and ordered the market be shut down.
This did nothing to deter the organizers, however, and an increasing frustrated city govt kept increasing the fines--reaching a whopping NT$9.6 million total by the end of the weekend. Their defiance ended when the city pulled the plug on power and water, and moved in with equipment to tear it all down--leaving vendors and organizers scrambling to get their gear out before the city did it for them." - NOT TAIWAN: If you want to understand what's happening in Egypt, mideast expert Juan Cole has a great post explaining it.
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!
13 comments:
Using internet keywords for political purposes isn't a new idea. During the American Republican primaries some guy (not worth remembering who) managed to get Rick Santorum's last name associated with a rather gross false definition. Even today if you Google "Santorum" you'll find some disturbing results after the first few pages on the candidate.
It became pretty standard practice for people considering runs for political office to buy up domain names that feature their or their potential opponents names, or variations of their names, as quickly as possible. I assume that still goes on.
Another very early example of this kind of thing is "Taiwan.com" which was purchased by either by China or a China-supporting organization many years ago (It might have been this website that alerted me to that fact, it was so long ago I don't remember).
I was disappointed that your photostream didn't carry more pictures of the chess set.
Is that rook carved to be half-chariot half-car? I think I would have preferred just a chariot - I'm something of a traditionalist.
I only had that one pic of the chess set. It was really a gorgeous set. Nope, the rook is a chariot. It's a very traditional set.
Michael
They are ceramics 交阯陶 to me.
HY
A few points on the Executive Yuan's change to the laws allowing development of reservoir catchment areas...
From the blogpost that was sent to you...
"目前台灣63座水庫，水庫集水區面積總計205萬3920公頃，一旦全數劃為特定水保區將影響經濟發展，而水保局強調實務上劃設也到處被反對。"
That says Taiwan has 63 reservoirs with over 2 million hectares of catchment area that may now be developed - assuming the new law stands. This is quite important as it means they are using a very broad definition of "reservoir" (possibly the one that counts as a "reservoir" any body of water with a volume capacity of 1 million m3 or more, but it might well be a much lower standard than that). To get a sense of perspective on this, Taiwan has only 22 reservoirs that would be recognizable to a layman as a "proper" reservoir - those are the likes of Shihmen reservoir, Tseng-wen reservoir, Feitsui reservoir and so on, but also some very small and largely unknown reservoirs like Luliao, Jianshanpei and Mingjing reservoirs are included in that 22.
So for the remaining 41 "reservoirs", we're really talking about ponds, many of which might be among those you saw in Taoyuan with several others dotted around throughout the other counties.
There are at least two other things to be borne in mind. One is that not every hectare made "available" for development is going to be practical anyway - especially for the catchment areas high up in the mountains for the big reservoirs. Geography will see to that. And geography, as I mentioned in the gmail chat, is likely the major if not sole reason why the catchment areas for Wushantou and Baihe will continue to be protected - look at these two on google maps and you should immediately see why.
The second thing I am not sure about, largely because my Chinese is inadequate. It seems that the Soil Conservation people might still be able to designate certain areas within the catchment areas for special protection besides those at obvious risk from landslide, but that such designations would have to be "defined" beyond simply calling them "pristine". So that looks like there could still be some leeway; presumably any such designation would have to turn on the protection of the larger riparian corridors.
Still, it could be quite bad and there will be lots of Water Resources people and Soil Conservation people who will be very angry about this, as their work in protecting catchment areas depended (much of it only completed in recent years following Morakot) depended on detailed studies of how water flows through the catchment area and on the types and rates of erosion for different soils. Much of that work could be put at risk depending on what kinds of development will be allowed to occur and to what degree.
I missed an important "not" in that comment... resubmit...
A few points on the Executive Yuan's change to the laws allowing development of reservoir catchment areas...
From the blogpost that was sent to you...
"目前台灣63座水庫，水庫集水區面積總計205萬3920公頃，一旦全數劃為特定水保區將影響經濟發展，而水保局強調實務上劃設也到處被反對。"
That says Taiwan has 63 reservoirs with over 2 million hectares of catchment area that may now be developed - assuming the new law stands. This is quite important as it means they are using a very broad definition of "reservoir" (possibly the one that counts as a "reservoir" any body of water with a volume capacity of 1 million m3 or more, but it might well be a much lower standard than that). To get a sense of perspective on this, Taiwan has only 22 reservoirs that would be recognizable to a layman as a "proper" reservoir - those are the likes of Shihmen reservoir, Tseng-wen reservoir, Feitsui reservoir and so on, but also some very small and largely unknown reservoirs like Luliao, Jianshanpei and Mingjing reservoirs are included in that 22.
So for the remaining 41 "reservoirs", we're really talking about ponds, many of which might be among those you saw in Taoyuan with several others dotted around throughout the other counties.
There are at least two other things to be borne in mind. One is that not every hectare made "available" for development is not going to be practical anyway - especially for the catchment areas high up in the mountains for the big reservoirs. Geography will see to that. And geography, as I mentioned in the gmail chat, is likely the major if not sole reason why the catchment areas for Wushantou and Baihe will continue to be protected - look at these two on google maps and you should immediately see why.
The second thing I am not sure about, largely because my Chinese is inadequate. It seems that the Soil Conservation people might still be able to designate certain areas within the catchment areas for special protection besides those at obvious risk from landslide, but that such designations would have to be "defined" beyond simply calling them "pristine". So that looks like there could still be some leeway; presumably any such designation would have to turn on the protection of the larger riparian corridors.
Still, it could be quite bad and there will be lots of Water Resources people and Soil Conservation people who will be very angry about this, as their work in protecting catchment areas depended (much of it only completed in recent years following Morakot) depended on detailed studies of how water flows through the catchment area and on the types and rates of erosion for different soils. Much of that work could be put at risk depending on what kinds of development will be allowed to occur and to what degree.
No, no, no - it was right the first time! Please disregard these last two comments. It's 1am, I'm tired and making mistakes.
A different point...
The claim that water catchment areas must be freed up for "economic development" is obviously just a ploy; on the one hand, there may be the gravel trucks looking for more gravel, and on the other hand there may be certain monied-up specimens from China possibly looking to jump ship (scared of an impending financial crash and getting purged for their part of it later on); they'll be after a nice resort or hotel to look after, or even just a house - but they will want it away from prying eyes out in the countryside.
No government is ever to be taken at face value on "economic development" anyway (or anything else for that matter). If I was one of those Star-Trek "make-it-so" wankers in the government, I wouldn't be ordering hotels to be built in reservoir catchment areas, for fuck's sake. I'd be looking at who (agencies, companies, individuals, relationships etc) I would need to remove/disempower/imprison/hang-from-a-lampost-with-piano-wire etc... to allow for a proper system of universal, individual property rights, but particularly for the poor and working class people as they need this more than anyone else (including contracts and access to legal services for the protection of those contracts).
At the end of the day all economic activity has only one purpose: to make life "better" in some way for those who are doing it - otherwise they wouldn't do it. With that in mind, there is nothing wrong with a future wherein most economic activity relates to services and innovation in services, irrespective of lower GDP or lower tax revenues. But for that to be the future it requires security of title, absence of arbitrary interference and something approaching "rule of law".
The future isn't fucking raw materials and hotels in the mountains.
Perhaps I should have spelled out the implication of the use of a broad definition of "reservoir"...
As I said, there are 22 "major" reservoirs in Taiwan (23 next year when the new one in Yunlin county is ready, and then 25 when Kaohsiung finally gets its two new ones over the next few years). If the number of reservoirs is taken as "63" then that means 41 of these are really just large ponds.
So much of the aggregate catchment area made available for development will be for those ponds and will thus be in low-lying areas where there is no risk of landslides. And that's a very different type of environmental impact than development up in the mountains behind the major reservoirs.
On the other hand, it might simply be that the use of the broad definition of "reservoir" was just reflex and that the resulting confusion is unintended. If that's the case, then it might be that the yet-to-be proposed developments are mostly intended for the catchment areas of the major reservoirs.
But even if that's the case, I would imagine the developers are going to have a hard time in some of these places. For one thing, Feitsui reservoir is unique in that it has its own management authority distinct from the Northern Taiwan Water Resources Bureau, and they are relatively strict about curtailing not just development but human activity around the reservoir in general. That's a long-term policy, which was borne through observation of the problems that Shihmen reservoir has had through development of its catchment area.
Shihmen reservoir itself already has considerable development through its catchment area and the Water Resources people have spent billions on trying to mollify the soil erosion problems this has caused; the Dahan river has more check dams and various other remedial infrastructure than any other river in Taiwan. The idea that the Water Resources Bureau is going to allow all that desperate work to be undermined by further development is hard to believe. A similar point could be made for the two largest reservoirs down here in the south - Tseng-wen and Nanhua reservoirs, both of which received tens of billions of dollars for clean-up and remedial work following the Morakot disaster four years ago.
Then there are the new reservoirs; the second Baoshan reservoir in Hsinchu, the one under construction in Yunlin, and the two planned for Kaohsiung - I can't see the Water Resources people caving to developers' demands before they've got their reservoirs finished, as they've been fighting to get these things built for years. The one on the Laonung river is having its own problems anyway, but the other one in Neimen district should be the really good one if they can get it built, and would seem to be intended as an adjunct for Agongdian reservoir - on which large amounts of time, money and effort have already been spent since the late '90s. So I would think there would be stiff resistance there too.
Of the major reservoirs I would think that the two in Nantou, and the first Baoshan in Hsinchu are most likely to have their catchment areas developed without much fight from the Water Resources people as they are relatively unimportant and already plagued by problems for which they can't get hold of the money to solve. Baihe reservoir would also fit into this category because it is a mess, but it is spared by its difficult surrounding geography and the fact that it already has loads of little farms and villages throughout its catchment area anyway. Likewise, I'd imagine the catchment area for Mudan reservoir in Pingtung would be a pain in the arse to develop (there are no existing roads through it), so it might be spared by the economics.
After those ones, I would think the catchment areas for the three reservoirs in Miaoli and the two in Chiayi would be the most attractive to developers and most likely to be met with least resistance. The Miaoli ones are surrounded by beautiful countryside and the developers will have a certain infamous commissioner on their side. The catchment area for the two Chiayi reservoirs - Lantan and Renyitan - is the same and extends eastward up into Alishan district following the thread of the Bazhang river, along which there are already plenty of gravel trucks and cement factories.
So even if they really do mean the major reservoirs, the developers probably aren't going to get everything their own way and certainly not without a fight; they might be able to buy off or threaten some people, but there will be plenty of people whose life achievements are bound up with the work they have done in water and soil conservation and they are going to be far more difficult to get around.
I should also mention that, in respect of Wushantou reservoir, its' catchment area is of comparatively lesser importance to the functioning of the reservoir (and thus the Chianan irrigation canal system) anyway since it is heavily supplemented by diverted water from the Tseng-wen river. That diversion is just a couple of kilometers downstream from the dam of Tseng-wen reservoir and runs under the mountains for about three kilometers. Thus the continuing viability of Wushantou reservoir and of the Chianan irrigation zone depends on the maintenance of Tseng-wen reservoir and its' catchment area.
This is a point that often goes unmentioned in all the hero-worship of Hatta (e.g. that the TT did in an op-ed a few weeks ago); Wushantou reservoir would have considerable problems today if it hadn't been for the construction - at the direction of the KMT - of Tseng-wen reservoir as a monstrous slave to the needs of Wushantou. Hatta may have had rudimentary plans for another reservoir on the Tseng-wen but it was the Water Bureau under the KMT that actually built it.
Some things I forgot...
When you think about development in catchment areas, you tend to think of soil erosion via increased compaction and run-off, especially where the hillsides are made steeper and shorter in length to accommodate roads, but the impact this will have on the reservoirs themselves depends on lots of other things.
For a start there are the ordinary mitigation measures (artificial rills, weirs and so on) to minimize or slow water run-off during rainfall, which can reduce the speed at which sediments are transported to the reservoir. These things could perhaps be imposed on developers as a condition, but whether that will work or not is another thing.
Then there's the siting of the reservoirs themselves - the two reservoirs in Chiayi are unlikely to be affected by sedimentation or flooding as they are sited off the Bazhang river and take in water via a pen-trap and sedimentation tanks. The sediments are removed before they can enter the reservoir, and are returned to the river. Yongheshan reservoir in Miaoli has a similar, off-stream siting plan, and although I found the main feed-water entrance point last year, I haven't yet found the point where the water is diverted from the river (it is either to the north or to the east). Either way, it seems as though the water passes through at least one underground channel to reach Yongheshan reservoir, which would seem to preclude the construction of sedimentation tanks. So I'm not sure about Yongheshan.
There are also some very large and expensive plans to preclude future sedimentation of the Tseng-wen and Nanhua reservoirs which depend on budgeting. I gather there are other such plans for Shihmen reservoir up north.
If the new developments include farms (?), then it might be that increased salinization could end up being one of the biggest problems but this is less a problem for the reservoirs per se, but more a problem in terms of the costs of water treatment.
The Taipei Times reported that environmental impact assessments will still be required for development in 25 of the reservoirs, so it seems I was missing three reservoirs in my 22. I got hold of the list and found them - there is a little one to the south-west of Sun Moon Lake ("Toushe reservoir" - 頭社水庫) and the two in Keelung ("Hsinshan reservoir" - 新山水庫 is the larger one and "Xishi reservoir" - 西勢水庫 is the smaller one).
Of course outside of that 25 there is also that tiny one up in the mountains in Hualien which I don't know much about except that it is there.
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