It's baaack: water rationing

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
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1

Told ya:

[quote]Water rationing might be imposed in northern and southern regions of the country early next month if there is not enough rain in the coming weeks to break a dry spell that has affected Taiwan since the beginning of the year, Water Resources Agency (WRA) Deputy Director Wu Yueh-si (吳約西) said on Thursday.

The agency plans to make an announcement on water rationing on Aug. 10 if the water shortage continues, Wu said following a drought meeting earlier in the day with officials from more than 30 government agencies, including the Central Weather Bureau, the Council of Agriculture and Taiwan Water Co.

Wu said the amount of rainfall this year as of Wednesday was 57 percent of the average amount over the past few years. Rainfall in the water catchment area of the Shihmen Reservoir in Taoyuan County reached only about 13 percent of the past average, he said.

“Should there be insufficient rain in the coming weeks, the WRA will call a meeting on Aug. 10 and announce water rationing measures for Taipei City and for other regions of southern Taiwan,” he said.

The measures would include a halt to water supplies for irrigation from the Shihmen Reservoir, while controls on total water volume dispensed would be imposed on the Tsengwen and Wushantou reservoirs in Tainan County, he said.

[/quote]
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/07/25/2003449497

More:

[quote]A dry plum rain season, compounded with the low numbers of typhoons so far, has driven Taiwan’s water volume to a dangerously low level. According to the Central Weather Bureau (CWB), the combined total rainfall in May and June is only 279.6 mm, a little more than half of the 500 mm year-on-year.

In July to the present, northern Taiwan has experienced only 10 percent of the average rainfall for the month. Only on less than half of days in the present month of July has the average amount of rain fallen in central and southern Taiwan.

Precipitations have dropped to new lows in several water stations. Stations in Taipei and Hengchuen have even seen the lowest rainfalls in a century, according to the CWB.
…
The CWB pointed out that while typhoons are the main source of rain in Taiwan, the six storms formed so far this year have all failed to bolster the island’s water needs. Lin Hsiu-wen, deputy director of the CWB’s forecast center, pointed out that the tropical cloudcluster system developing in the Philippines will not become a tropical storm in the near future and the situation also is similar in areas near Guam.

…
Low water prices result in the careless uses of water, Lee said. The average Taiwan person uses 320 liters of water everyday. In comparison, a person living in Western Europe uses only 150 liters of water daily, Lee said.

Taiwan’s businesses have even less incentives to save water as they receive a better bargain in water fees.

…
Ouyang Chiao-fuei, profession of the Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Central University, said in the China Times that while the government would raise prices to reflect the value of water, a water price hike is always made into a thorny political issue by lawmakers. Without adequate revenues, Ouyang pointed out, the TWC cannot upgrade its equipment, resulting in a water leakage rate of a staggering 30 percent.

[/quote]
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2009/07/28/218024/Taiwan-braces.htm

Get the big water containers ready, folks.

2

There have been torrential rains in Taipei every afternoon like clockwork for weeks. It’s happening as I type this. It must be filling some reservoirs.

3

Not enough, it seems. It has more to do with the design of the reservoirs, the usage, and the rest of factors involved. Remember the year we had 2 days off water a week?

4

hmm, but out in danshui we havent had a drop - my farmer friend is growing spherical instead of elongated si gua and my tomatoes refuse to fruit. On sunday it rained for literally 5 seconds. But every other day I come home and ask if it rained and nothing in Danshui. Then again, I dont know if there is a resevoir up there either.

I would totally believe this water shortage and even if the City is raining heavily, that doesnt help fill resevoirs, unless they just built one in Xinyi?..

The other worry is a strong el nino this year could mean the poor harvests are compounded by destoyed crops by super strong typhoons or no typhoons or rainfall until lwinter - and another super expensive autumn for buying food

5

I seem to remember that causing air conditioners in large buildings to be shut off, as they required large volumes of water for cooling. Our company bought a fan for each employee. That worked okay because we could open windows in that building, but in our new building the windows are sealed.

6

As usual, Taoyuan gets teh short end of teh stick:

[quote]As the Shihmen Reservoir is drying up, the water supply in the county of Taoyuan may have to be rationed late next month, a Water Conservancy Administration official said yesterday. The crest at Shihmen was 224.81 meters on Wednesday, only 1.81 meters above the minimum requirement, said Chien Chao-chun, WCA deputy director.

If there’s no heavy rains in the next few days in Taoyuan, Chien said, the water crest at Shihmen would dip under the minimum. “We will have to ration irrigation water at once,” he added.

In the worse scenario, city water may have to be rationed probably toward the end of August, Chien said.

[/quote]
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2009/07/31/218511/Water-may.htm

And just for teh sake of argument -as Tommy said recently, anything can be in your water:

[quote]Over 300 apartment residents drank or otherwise used water in which a corpse was submerged for at least 14 hours, the Apple Daily reported yesterday. Few of them knew that, for the apartment manager didn’t tell them one resident committed suicide by drowning himself in the water tower atop the 27-floor building in suburban Kaohsiung.

The manager said he was told there was trouble with the water supply by a resident Wednesday morning. He had a worker take a look inside the water tower.

A body was found stuck to the release pipe.

Police investigators identified the body and found a suicide note written on the wall of his flat. The suicide was committed Tuesday night.
…

[color=#BF0000]Public health officials said the corpse-submerged water is harmless.

A body does not decompose in water in 14 hours. “You always drink water after you boil it,” one official was quoted as saying. “No harm done,” he pointed out.[/color]

[/quote]
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/local/kaohsiung/2009/07/31/218512/Apartment-residents.htm

:astonished: :doh: :cry:

7

The rationing has never affected me as our tank is big enough to last two days so by the time it is emptying the water is turned back on.

8

Free soup!

9

The water table out here in Longtan is definitely one sick puppy…
Prayer for rain… :woodstock:

10

The funny thing is that Taiwan loses massive amounts of its water through old Japanese colonial-era piping that brings the water from the Shihmen reservoir to Taipei – figures that would be unacceptable in any developed country are tolerated here where the assumption is that it “doesn’t matter” if water leaks out so long as we can count on typhoons to fill it all back up again. The foreign companies with technologies that easily accomplish the pipe repairs have all be chased out of Taiwan because of the government’s apparent unwillingness to encourage any projects that aren’t under the thumb of local companies.

11

Maybe we’ll see some rain from this.

12

^^Bingo!^^

Local companies that function as ripoff artists, at that! The way I see it, TWC encourages wasting water. I could turn on all of my taps, inside and out, and my water bill would still be under 2K/2 months. (I think. I’ve never actually tried it.)

13

Sure, it shouldn’t even bear notice, because they cut off the water from like 6 am to 6 pm, at least in the city, but we have enough in the roof tank to least everyone 2 days, right?
Right.
Except that the fuckin RUBES in my building, as soon as the paper announces the rationing, all run and get like 3 or 4 large plastic trash bins into the bathroom, and fill them all up, draining the fucking tank!!
And you know it takes like another day or more, once the tank is drained, and once it’s refilled, for the water to start running clean again.
Morons.

14

^^Bingo!^^

…[/quote]

To my knowledge, they started replacing these pipes some years ago …

15

Some of them. For example, they left teh Shida area without water yesterday, because changing those sturdy pipes takes a lot of effort. Some people in the night market were not ready for the delay, some were not informed, but at the end water trucks were sent.

16

Last night’s rain was nowhere near enough.
Why, I can still see that armchair sitting high & dry.
Way above where the levee broke…
Still, we are dancing for that storm to way its generous yield.
My two younglings have joined the fray.
We’ve done The Funk, we’ll be shure to return by the evening shuttle.
We’re ready to graduate to skankin’ Ska and RootsRockReggae.
Dance, mofos’, dance! :grandpa:

17

Due to post typhoon “turbidity”, Kaohsiung is also having water problems.

[quote]“Judging from the pictures of Chengching Lake [澄清湖] taken by city officials this morning, the lake could run out of [potable] water within a day,” Chen said.

Although the lake is 16.39m deep, more than a week after Typhoon Morakot struck the region, only the top 16cm are drinkable…

Fengshan Reservoir and the lake — the two main sources of water to the southern part of the city — are both running out of potable water, causing a water crisis in the south of the city, even as the city government struggles with similar problems in the north.

The water supply to residents in Zuoying (左營) and Nanzih (楠梓) districts was suspended for about one week because of the poor water quality in the Kaoping River.

Taiwan Water Corp said yesterday it was doing its best and hoped to resolve the crisis within three days
[/quote]
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/08/18/2003451417