The Taliaokeng River remediation project in New Taipei City will significantly reduce flooding hazards for nearby residents, Premier Jiang Yi-huah said this morning while inspecting flood prevention facilities in the city's Xinzhuang and Shulin districts.
After being briefed by the Water Resources Agency (WRA), the premier said flooding from the river previously affected 40,000 people in the area, but that number has been brought down to only about 2,900 in recent years as various parts of the projects are being completed.
The Taliaokeng project affects a sizeable population, with roughly 240,000 people living in the river's catchment area and a similar density in industrial and residential districts in the downstream area, Jiang said. It is considered one of the most important and challenging projects in the government's eight-year, NT$80 billion (US$2.7 billion) flood control program. The premier thanked New Taipei City government for seeing every task to completion, including land expropriation and construction and relocation of factories and gravel pits. With such teamwork and technical expertise, Jiang believes the project will bring substantial improvements to the area's flood defenses.
In last year's review of the eight-year NT$80 billion program, the Executive Yuan found that many areas had seen drastic reductions in the size and depth of flooding following remedial flood control. Premier Jiang hopes that the newly approved six-year NT$66 billion program will continue this success and that it would find even better solutions through comprehensive land planning, "three-dimensional" flood control (capturing and storing rainfall at all elevations), and adopting "sponge city" concepts.
According to the WRA, NT$4 billion of the NT$6 billion Taliaokeng river project has been built so far. The project separates drainage for high- and low-lying areas and achieves water remediation objectives through non-engineering methods. Of the project's 20 tasks, only the Taliaokeng No. 2 water pump and outlet gate remain to be completed. Construction is expected to be finished by late October 2014.