In order to prevent soil and groundwater from contamination, the local competent authority must regularly investigate and exam the quality of soil and groundwater in its own jurisdiction and deal with people’s pleading. Thus, Yilan Environmental Protection Bureau (the “EPB”) has been continuously monitoring the potential sites of contaminated soil and groundwater in its own authority region, including industrial complex and communities in Longde, Lize, and Meizhou as well as underground storage tank (UST). Additionally, the work of inspection, verification and control measures has been implemented over restrained contaminated area. The EPB has commissioned AECOM Co., Ltd (the “team”) to be the chief executive of “2017 Project of investigating and verifying contamination for soil and groundwater in Yilan County” (the “project”). All scopes of work in the project has been accomplished and every assignment was flawlessly on schedule. Hereby the final report is submitted to the EPB following its inspection over the work.
In this year there are 13 sites where the contamination in soil exceeds the control standard, 8 of which are waste-recycling sites. Also, Zeng Fu Shipyard (had named to Quanfu Shipyard), Da Jin Shipyard, barrack CC-13-30 and Je Son technology Co., Ltd. And. In addition, the investigation of sediments around the illegal factories on farmland has done this year, also enquired 7 factories out which are more polluted. It is suggested that the EPB could conduct soil and sediment survey for its downstream agricultural land, irrigation and drainage channels; and also do the soil and sediment investigation inside those factories.
For the investigation in farmlands applying manure as fertiliser, this year’s investigation focused on the upstream of Lan Yang River where has higher pollution potential. Among them, the investigation this year targeted tableland and high-grounded riverbank due to the liability of heavy metal accumulation in these places. Yilan EPB this year has completed 49 points of soil investigations, and found 9 places with results higher than farmland monitoring standards. And 3 of 9 are farmlands that have been on the observation list. On the other hand, the heavy metal concentrations in livestock manure have also been tested by content analysis following XRF screening to pick out higher ones from all soil samples. The outcome showed that there were 2 soil samples with zinc exceeding the control standard (copper concentration at the edge of the control standard). It is likely a result of long-term manure usage to cause the concentration in soil higher than the standards. The team has filed the relevant investigation results from 2011 to 2017 to raise two aspects, “Source control at poultry farm” and “Sessions with farmers”, to improve the situation.
The team had completed the condition assessment on twelve monitoring wells on June 20th 2017, including the downstream well at San-Hsing landfill. Five of them went through the maintenance after the assessment, and seven of them went through the well development again followed by camera shooting inside the well to assure of tidiness.
Reviewing the known results, those onsite monitoring wells with higher ammonia concentration were mostly at Longde industrial area, perimeter of Yilan landfill site, and riverbank of Tung-Shen River; whilst higher concentrations of iron, manganese and arsenic appeared at Longde industrial area, the water park, and the riverbank of Tung-Shen River. The analysis results of groundwater of the landfill indicated that general subjects were exceeding the monitoring standards such as total hardness, chloride, ammonia, and total dissolved solid.
It is suggested to continue overseeing those restrained sites to update the situation of improvement of each, and carry out the performance inspection over those completing the remediation. There had been twelve performance inspections in this year, i.e. Lu-Fang (2 inspections), six inspections on waste recycle business, (Feng-Yi, Hung-Mao, Hsin-Hsing, Chih-Tien, Yi-Tai (2 inspections), and Yu-Hsin-Hang), Chen-Tou Hill Range, North Te-Yang military compound, and Hung-Chai-Lin. All sites are now on the list of de-restraining.
The team has supported EPB to 100% report the situation of gas stations in Q4 2016, Q1 2017, and Q2 2017. In this year the team and EPB had also monitored gas stations such as Lan-Yang, Chung-Cheng South Road, Chiao-Hsi, Chuang-Wei, Pei-Kuan and Tung-Shen. The results showed that in Lan-Yang gas station there were three spots found over the warning standard, giving potential of soil and groundwater contamination.
Under the known condition soil and groundwater investigation started at Lan-Yang gas station, the outcome told no sight of exceeding the control standards, but gasoline odour in soil and floating oil in simple wells indicated the oil leakage had happened. Thus, on November 13 the team had arranged one installation of standard monitoring well at the downstream of groundwater flow beneath Lan-Yang gas station.
In this year there had been thirty-six samplings (February-December 2017) for soil and rock import management. Through XRF screening the team had found no soil exceeding the farmland monitoring standard. The import management had been three years and business were all careful about the source of imported soil and rock due to being aware of EPB’s sampling. The team suggested the management should be continued by the principle of efficient investigation, but the frequency can be lowered down to two samplings for two months with XRF screening as the preliminary judgement on abnormal soil and rock.
There had been three sessions (attended by 274 people) hold for legitimacy explanation on Soil and Groundwater Pollution Act, two sessions of subject training (totally six hours), and three sessions of campus education (additional services). People attending included civilians, relevant businessmen, pupils or students, and administrators. The effect was expected not only to promote the society’s knowledge of soil and groundwater protection, but also to hear attendee’s opinion as part of administration improvement in the future.
