Water Quallity Protection Web

Water Environment Patrol

Origin

On July 13, 2000, some waste liquid was dumped into Qishan River, Kaohsiung, causing a pungent odor, along with the immediate death of a large number of weed plants, fish and shrimps nearby. The pollution, extending to water source areas, resulted in insufficient water supply of the entire Greater Kaohsiung, where water supply was interrupted for 5 days. In order to ensure safe drinking water for Kaohsiung citizens, heads of the then Kaohsiung City, Kaohsiung County and Pingtung County convened a meeting and jointly established River Patrol of Kaohsiung-Kaohsiung-Pingtung to patrol the water environment and strengthen the investigation along the bank of Gaoping River. It was the start of the earliest water environment patrol in Taiwan.

The establishment of the river patrol ignited the public’s passion and spirit to contribute to public affairs. Before long, water environment patrols were mushroomed in cities and counties in southern Taiwan. Given the growing importance attached by the public to water environment protection, the MOENV, starting from 2001, initiated a plan to encourage the public’s participation in the protection of Erren River. It cooperated with Chang Jung Catholic University (CJCU) to establish a facilitating branch for water environment preservation operation and, along with 5 universities and colleges, 7 environmental protection organizations, 1 community and 1 radio station, encourage the public’s involvement in the protection of Erren River. In the next year (2002), the MOENV established a nation-wide standard procedure for citizens to report pollution events. If citizens found pollution in water environment or suspected waste liquid emission, they can report to departments of environmental protection through an EPA hotline. the MOENV took the initiative to contact citizens and jointly collected evidence, reported illegal behaviors, and supervise improvement works. It proved to be extremely effective to curb pollution or illegal emission of waste liquid in the river basin.

Implementation

the MOENV established a total of 3 water environment protection centers- 1 in northern Taiwan, 1 in mid-Taiwan and 1 in southern Taiwan. These centers have been platforms for communication between water environmental patrols and government departments, and provided technical support for reporting and inspecting pollution events. Cooperating with departments of environmental protection around the country, they also started to co-organize education and training sessions for water environment patrol to enhance members’ patrolling skills and the reporting procedure. In addition, they helped patrols establish patrol routes and areas calling for extra attention. the MOENV delineated important water source areas, recreational areas and pollution hotspots in the river basin, so that patrols could regularly inspect these areas and organize river-cleaning or creek-cleaning events so to ensure water quality.

Results

the MOENV , step by step, is leading the local governments to encourage citizens’ participation in the water environment patrol. In 2006, it started to promote operation facilitation plans and actively expand people’s participation in water environment patrol and assisted the establishment of a sustainable operation model. In 2009, e-management mechanism was promoted. In addition, in response to the enactment of Environmental Education Act, an education and training session for volunteers of water environment patrol was provided in 2012. the MOENV actively facilitated local governments to establish river ecological classroom to make use of river biology system to promote the public’s understanding about water environment. After the water environment patrol organization was more mature, starting from 2016, the MOENV facilitated the patrol teams to be specialized and localized, and focused on exchange experience with patrols of other cities or counties, so to inspire more ideas for operation or development.

With multi-aspects of promotion, water environment patrols have developed from a local organization to an organization that involves every citizen. As of today, we have 428 patrol teams composed of members as many as 12,018, who are ready to do their shares in water environment protection.

In order to understand the effects of water environment patrol operation and facilitation in different counties and cities, the MOENV established a selection mechanism for annual outstanding water environment patrol. A total of 10 teams will be selected from patrols nominated by departments of environmental protection of counties and cities and be recognized publicly as outstanding, or good, or featured patrols, or patrols with great potentials.