Taiwan’s environmental regulator could soon start using a system that allows it to monitor wastewater flow in real time from power plants, industrial parks and companies.
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) will monitor the regulation of wastewater with a quantity above 10,000 m3, as well as at least 2,000 m3 of wastewater from industrial parks, according to The China Post.
The second stage will target the management of at least 15,000 cubic meters of wastewater from commercial firms and power plants.
As part of the system, the administration’s monitoring equipment would be permanently connected via the internet to the environmental protection bureaus of local governments.
The China Post reported that the first stage of the construction of the system is scheduled to be completed by July next year and by the end of December 2014, the monitoring system is expected to have oversight over 56.8% of the wastewater activities in Taiwan.
Quantity, temperature, pH level, suspended solids and chemical oxygen demand, among others, are all expected to be monitored by the system.
An increase in wastewater monitoring in Taiwan followed a revision in March 2013 of the EPA’s Water Pollution Control Measures and Test Reporting Management Regulations.
In this document the EPA said: “Day-to-day experience has shown that some enterprises have inadequate pollution prevention facilities and may incur serious regulatory violations when discharging large volumes of potentially polluting wastewater with complex compositions. The EPA thus felt it necessary to further strengthen prevention and monitoring measures by amending the above regulations to gain better control over water pollution at its source.
“Recent research has found that individual industrial and commercial enterprises have poor pollution-prevention facilities and are violating regulations, including failing to properly discharge large volumes of potentially polluted and dangerous wastewater.”
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