According to the 2011 demographic statistics of New Taipei City, the population of New Taipei City has been up to 3,910,000 people, making it Taiwan’s largest city. With rising population, environmental load caused by a variety of developmental activities is becoming increasingly heavy. In addition, New Taipei City has been upgraded to a municipality under the direct leadership of the central government, resulting in the upgrade of overall local construction. The new municipal construction plan includes the establishment of major transportation network of building one road per year, the acceleration in the development of five new urban regions, and the sewer construction projects of the 13 neighboring towns. While ensuring the construction quality, the environmental quality and pollution reduction are the major objective of this project. The summary of major achievements of project implementation is as follows:
1. Collection of Air Pollution Fee
The purpose is to charge the polluters. From March 4, 2011 to February 3, 2012, the “2010 Construction Project Air Pollution Prevention Program Follow-up Expansions” has helped collecting construction project air pollution fee in 3,377 cases. In addition, from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011, air pollution fee of 3,643 cases has been collected. According to the accounting of the Agency, the total collected sum from January to December in 2011 has amounted to more than 103,000,000 NTD, and the fee collected from new projects has reduced by about 6.1%, as compared with the same period of last year. The voluntary payment of monthly air pollution fee has been up to 100% so far. We provide the division of responsibilities in task analysis, the shortening of declaration waiting time, the establishment of suggestion box to invite suggestions on declaration and application, flowchart illustrations and air pollution fee advocacy pamphlets and other convenience services.
2. Inspection Control
To reduce pollution by on-site inspection, from March 4, 2011 to February 3, 2012, 6,643 on-site inspections have been made, reaching the project’s mid-term target by 100%. Regarding the inspections assigned to various townships, Xindian has been mostly inspected with total pollution control inspection percentage accounting for 94.1% of the amount of pollution projects in the city. The white lists (pollution free) account for 80.7%, green lists (slight pollution) account for 16.6%, and yellow lists (severe pollution) account for 2.7%. Suggestions for inspection have been made in case of construction sites causing severe pollution and 93 of such construction sites have been denounced and punished.
To strengthen the upgrading of pollution reduction in sensitive areas, a total of eight control zones have been set up to regulate the 48 construction projects. 58 cases of denouncement have been declared from March 4,2011 to February 3, 2012 after failure of guidance with the total sum up to 4.4 million NTD. After subsequent requirements on improvement, in the respect of pollution reduction effectiveness, the total dust cut in the project control zone has been up to 243.4 tons/month at the monthly average reduction rate of 49.7%, showing the preliminary results of the control efforts.
The road pipeline projects vulnerable to petition of residents are under the control of special programs. The policies of no landing and spilling of construction wasteland and the cleaning after construction completion are promoted. From March 4, 2011 to February 3, 2012, a total of 693 on-site counseling sessions have been conducted. After implementation, the road project reduction rate has improved by 5.7%, and the pipeline project reduction rate has improved by 11.7% over last year.
To deter the pollution of neighboring roads by engineering vehicles coming in and out of the soil excavation sites, personnel is specifically dispatched to watch over the construction sites with soil excavation above 1,000M3. By monitoring of long staying inspection staffs, the constructors are regulated to implement various preventive measures. A total of 50 major construction sites of soil excavation have been monitored. All the monitored sites can carry out operations such as cleaning the vehicles coming in and out of the sites, pulling down the vehicle body by 15 cm, cleaning the routes of vehicles, keeping the traffic and cleaning the neighboring roads.
To enhance the public satisfaction and reverse their poor perceptions about construction sites, operations of cleaning the exit and entrance of construction site, green network report and counseling and anti-flood silt counseling for roads prone to dredge are promoted. This Program has selected 17 sections of road in this city for monthly monitoring and counseling of 64 construction sites to promote the program of “clear exit”. The “premium grade” construction sites increase from the original 21 to the present 54. 51 construction sites have completed the inspection and counseling of the green network report regarding the entrance and exist of the construction site. 48 sections of road prone to flood have been inspected and 8 construction sites have received counseling with monthly promotion of the cleaning and maintaining operations for neighboring environment.
To supervise the implementation of preventive measures in major construction projects, this Program has investigated the environmental impact assessment projects of the construction projects in this city including 54 projects under regulation within the annual period. During the program period, 556 inspections have been conducted. The pollution prevention equipments promised in environmental impact assessment reports of the construction projects are not fully consistent with provisions of the management measures. After the counseling and coordination of this Program, the cut rate of most projects has remained above 50%.
To enhance administrative efficiency and speed up the information communication system as well as promote the pollution reporting system, the top ten builders, contractors and constructors in the specific control zones have been invited to join the system. Thanks to appropriate publicity, 293 construction sites of 30 firms have joined the reporting system. During the program period, 12 sites of serious problems have been inspected. After briefing, one site has implemented self-improvement and two sites have been abolished of the reporting qualifications as they failed to improve. The remaining sites maintain the excellent conditions.
The dust reduction programs for specific zones are developed to encourage builders and constructors in the specific zones to take high-efficiency anti-air pollution facilities and good neighbor initiatives. The sub-downtown of Xinzhuang and the West Central Area are selected for the first stage promotion. The eight construction projects in the sub-downtown Xinzhuang are already under implementation and 4 construction sites in the west Central Bridge development zone are under construction. After inspection and counseling, the regional project pollution cut rate has been improved to 66%, increasing by 3.8% as compared with the first time inspection and is higher than the overall cut rate of the city (61.8%) by 4.2%.
3. Dust Reduction Promotion
By requiring owners to sign the road maintenance letters of consent, the Program promotes the road cleaning and sweeping for dust reduction operations. During the period, 61 owners have agreed to clean and sweep roads. A total of 40,546.3 km of roads has been cleaned and 21,662.7 km of roads have been swept. TSP 858.5 tons of TSP and 161.7 tons of PM10 have been reduced as estimated. By the monthly road dirtiness judgment, road sections of “Good A” level have risen from the original 24.5% to 62.0%, road sections of “Dirty C” level have dropped from the original 1.6% to 0.0%, suggesting the visual perception of road sections the construction sites are committed to clean and sweep have improved significantly.
To promote the vegetation of bare ground, since March 2011, inspection of construction sites with large bare land has been implemented. A total of 18.1 hectares of idle land has been positioned and calculated. The construction sites are advised to carry out vegetation operations on idle bare land. By the end of February, 2012, the area with vegetation project has been up to 10.1 hectares.
4. Pollution Reduction
Regarding the estimation of the construction pollution reduction since March 2011 to January 2012, the average monthly total fugitive dust reduction of construction projects amounts to 1,635.1 tons/month (the average reduction of TSP per month is up to 456.2 tons). In the 11 months of the program implementation, the total fugitive dust reduction of construction projects is 17,986.0 tons at the total pollution cut rate at 62.1%. The regional development (community, industrial zone), residence construction and bridge project are better in pollution reduction with the cut rate above 50%.
5. Site Counseling and Advocacy
Pollution reduction meetings and consultations as well as regulation advocating meetings by different themes and purposes have been held. In addition to explanations about major points for air pollution control of construction projects, the meetings also advocate various featured programs of this Agency. A total of 423 people have been invited for such meetings.
A total of 500 copies of the air pollution advocacy pamphlets for construction projects have been produced and distributed. A total of 2,000 copies of the “Air Pollution Prevention Facilities Management Measures” and 2,000 copies of “Guidance for Air Pollution Fee Collection” have been provided to builders and contractors as a reference in establishing relevant preventive measures. The website of construction project air pollution control is updated each month to better advocate the latest rules and regulations.
Regarding the excellent construction site initial evaluation work, by July 28, 2011, 18 sites in the civil engineering category and 23 sites in the construction category applied for initial evaluation conducted in early August, 2011. The reassessment was conducted by the end of August to finally pick out 4 sites of excellence in building construction category and 2 sites of excellence in civil engineering category. 19 firms were awarded and recognized by award on December 21, 2011.
