Currently, the Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Fund has 8 sources of income. Among them, by following the example of the US Superfund, is a Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Fee, which has collected over NTD$10 billion since 2001. The Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Fee is the most important source of income of the Remediation Fund and provides sound support for remediation efforts by the EPA. However, over the years, questions were raised regarding the funding and expenditure of the Remediation Fund. The fee payers of the Remediation Fee have been requesting the EPA to acquire funding from other sources. Also, the remediation fund is continuously losing balance due to a number of large-scale pollution investigation projects initiated by the EPA. The purpose of this project is to investigate the efficiently of fund expenditures and to devise a strategic plan for future fund operations. We collected information on how other countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Netherland, Japan, and Korea, manage their soil and groundwater pollutions and how they fund their remediation efforts. We also conducted 350 questionnaires and 31 polluted site visitations to obtain opinions from university professors, remediation companies, fee payers, and actual polluters on where the EPA should gather funding from and how these funds should be spent. Based on the information we gathered, we derived strategic plans for the “Funding”, “Expenditure”, and “Awarding Mechanism” of the Remediation Fund. We then held 2 round table meetings, 2 expert consultation meetings, and 3 public hearings to obtain further opinions on these three topics. These strategic plans will provide the EPA with insights on its future fund operations. Since the EPA had already established their short- and mid-tern goals from 2015 to 2018, these strategies are recommended for long-term implementation.

Soil and Groundwater, Remediation Fund, Strategic Plan