As people pursue a higher quality of life and our technological civilization continues to evolve, growing industrial development and increasingly advanced technology have been accompanied by rapid increases in the amounts and types chemical substances in use. At present, roughly 70,000-80,000 chemicals are commonly used in Taiwan. As a consequence, the majority of major chemical accidents and environmental pollution incidents in recent years have constituted compound disasters, and had environmental effects spanning the aspects of air, water, soil, waste, and toxic chemical substances. This underscores the need for the integration of environmental accident prevention, readiness, and response systems in the near future. This plan has inherited existing toxic chemical accident response systems, emphasizes the strengthening of air, water, and waste readiness and response mechanisms, and will facilitate response to compound disasters.
The dedicated environmental accident consulting and monitoring center has five groups focusing on particular service areas: an administrative group, monitoring group, consulting group, air pollution task force, and technology group. This center's routine prevention and readiness implementation results included 1,624 media monitoring cases (including 437 domestic cases and 1,187 foreign cases) and 212 chemical consulting cases, for a total of 1,836 cases (the contractual requirement is at least 1,000 cases), as well as 380 air pollution incident monitoring and notification cases, and 143 notifications of the EPA's service units. In addition, emergency response and disposal results included on-site handling of 73 toxic chemical accidents, provision of 357 recommendations to on-site disaster response units (attainment rate of 100% for a first text message within 30 minutes; the contractual requirement is at least 90%), and on-site handling of four air pollution incidents. Responding to the foregoing needs, we completed revision of the dedicated environmental accident consulting and monitoring center's environment accident response handbook, and held seven air pollution response training classes (attended by 244 persons), eight "technology group work conference report and response videoconferences," and nine "online response task conferences," updated 182 relevant basic personal information items connected with the Central Toxic Disaster Response Center and performed telephone connection testing (1,358 person-times; the connection success rate was 100%), established 51 environmental accident consulting and air pollution response expert teams.
With regard to promotion of interchange with foreign environmental accident prevention and response experts and researchers, we will participate in the Tenth Meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee (POPRC 10), which will be held in Rome, Italy, during October 27-31, 2014. We also sent personnel to participate in an IAFC conference and toured the training facilities of Singapore's Civil Defense Institute between May 26 and June 4, and held four foreign expert and scholar interchange training sessions and conferences; five experts and scholars from the US, Singapore, Thailand, and Australia were invited and shared their experiences with a total of 341 participants. After completing pre-departure training, personnel attended response commander training hosted by an international organization and gave results reports; participants included personnel at the level of bureau chief, deputy bureau chief, and section (subsection) chief and above affiliated with central government disaster prevention units, Council for Economic Planning and Development, Environmental Management Office, Chief Environmental Inspection Team, Bureau of Air Quality Protection, and all county and city environmental protection bureaus, as well as the dedicated environmental accident consulting and monitoring center and environmental accident technology group; a total of 28 persons participated in training. Apart from pre-departure training, foreign training classes, and experience sharing conferences, the participants visited Singapore's Alexandra Fire Station, and gained an understanding of its chemical accident prevention, readiness, and response strategies.
In order to strengthen domestic environmental accident prevention and readiness capabilities, we completed annual updates for 305 regulated toxic chemical substances, added popular science data for 43 toxic chemical substances, and issued four (50th, 51st, 52nd and 53rd issues) environmental accident text message e-bulletins; a total of 14,639 e-bulletins were issued and were viewed a cumulative total of 545,952 person-times. We completed general operating level, specialized technical level, and team leader levels annual readiness training; a total of 318 persons took part in five phases (eight sessions) of this training. We implemented seven on-site training sessions for EPA-issued instruments and equipment, and attracted 190 participants. We completed 24 quantitative audits of environmental accident analysis and testing work involving 2,981 sets of monitoring data. We completed simplified selection activity guidelines established an activity awareness website, organized a selection committee, held a preliminary second selection conference, and conducted an awards activity; a total of 17 companies participated in the selection process, and six companies obtained the Superior Award. We held a "central responsible personnel liaison and coordination conference," "national environmental accident case symposium," and "service review conference," which were attended by 526 people.
With regard to strengthening chemical handlers' joint prevention readiness capabilities, nationwide joint prevention organizations included 87 inter-regional joint prevention organizations including 715 companies and 76 regional joint prevention organizations including 3,759 companies. During the year, we assisted in the follow-up review of 10 joint prevention organizations, helped three companies meet their joint prevention needs, provided a draft sample format for city and county toxic chemical accident joint prevention reference documents and produced small numbers of an approved version, and held a joint prevention work circle explanatory meeting attended by 132 people. We also helped city and county environmental protection units to hold 38 explanatory meetings concerning the organization of joint prevention teams, and completed roster selection procedures for no-warning tests of joint prevention working circles and city and county toxic chemical accident joint prevention team and on-site operating model workshops, and held a total of 33 sessions. With regard to plant operation safety management and hazard assessment in high-risk operating areas, we completed a list of eight high-risk industry areas, selected companies, and issued notification documents, and collected hazard simulation analysis and evacuation/escape data; a total of 245 companies were issued notification documents, and 227 companies have returned their documents, for a 93% response rate. We conducted seven training classes in industrial areas where high-risk toxic chemical substance handling occurs, and a total of 190 people took part in this training. We performed toxic chemical substance handling safety management assistance visits to handling plants, and completed drafting of annual assistance visit selection principles, an assistance checklist, assistance participants, and an assistance roster. With regard to handling safety management assistance visits to SMEs in Taoyuan County, we selected 11 companies handling toxic chemical substances and having high levels of public hazard, performed assistance work, and helped with assistance checklist and assistance member items in accordance with annual assistance visit selection principles; a total of 40 assistance visits were completed during the year.
