The project aims to assist the Taoyuan Environmental Protection Bureau in enabling the stationary pollution source in Taoyuan City to follow and comply with the relevant provisions in the Air Pollution Control Act, such as the permit system, emission fee system, regular inspection and declaration, fugitive pollution source control and pollutant discharge standards. Besides, the project is to continuously promote pollution reduction and master the actual emission volume of the City in 2019. During the project period (January 1 ~ December 31, 2019), all works were completed in accordance with the contract.
Implementation of the permit system can strengthen the operation management of stationary pollution source and pollution prevention. The permit review process of this project follows the relevant provisions of the Air Pollution Control Act and the Permit Management Regulations, and incorporates the City's strengthened requirements for the processes of high pollution industries and related pollution prevention and control facilities, including the items for coal boiler permit review and independent efficiency verification, the reasonable and effective prevention equipment of volatile organic compounds, as well as the mass energy balance calculation, operation parameter requirements of combustion control equipment, notes for the review of waste fuel boilers, and review principles of sawdust boilers, etc. During the implementation of the project, 1,268 applications for plant setting and operating permits were accepted; among them, 794 were reviewed and the permits were issued, 149 were rejected due to lack of appropriate correction in the statutory deadline, 20 were withdrawn by the applicants, and 305 are still under review. 225 of the cases to which the permits were issued involved changes in the emission volume, and 32 of these 225 cases had the emission volume increased due to new pollution sources or inadequate control efficiencies of existing storage sites; the total approved emission volume of particulate pollutants during the project period thus increased by 180.8 tons. For the remaining 193 cases, the approved emission volumes decreased due to improvements, including decrease of 166.9 tons in sulfur oxide, 73.6 tons in nitrogen oxide, and 509.3 tons in volatile organic compounds. At present, there are 2,279 manufacturing processes in the City with operation permits (belonging to 1,440 different factories), an increase of 149 processes over those in 2018. The total annual approved emission volumes are 7,773 tons of particulate pollutants, 10,182 tons of sulfur oxides, 21,044 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 13,096 tons of volatile organic compounds.
There are 1,842 companies in the City that shall declare actual emissions in each quarter and pay corresponding emission fee for totally about NT$116.11 million per quarter. During the project period, quarterly declaration reviews and two payments were completed, and 716 companies needed to make up the payment shortage of about NT$31.51 million (533 of them have already done so). During the on-site inspections of 314 companies, errors were found in 248 companies’ declarations, and the main reason for the errors was that the declaration of raw materials (fuels) was inconsistent with the on-site record. 64 of the 66 companies which paid the particulate-material emission fee for the first time failed to comply due to inconsistency between the declared efficiency of their air pollution prevention equipment and the on-site inspection results. In addition, the project rendered assistance in the handling of 18 applications for emission fee reduction due to the companies’ purchase of prevention equipment, and one application for the owner’s setting of plant coefficient.
There are 799 flues in the City that shall be inspected and declared for review according to law. During the project period, assistance was rendered to the operators in conducting the regular inspection and declaration, and 1,152 cases were reviewed; among them, 269 needed to be corrected. At the same time, 88 secondary flues for fuel oil boilers and raw coal boilers without control equipment, as well as those assigned by the Environmental Protection Bureau were monitored and inspected; the inspections of 23 of them were suspended due to pollution source equipment failure, failure to meet operating conditions or the inspection institution’s instrument problems. Subsequent inspections and declaration reviews were completed after the problems were removed.
There are 218 companies in this City that shall set up and implement pollution control in accordance with the Regulations on the Management of Fugitive Particulate Pollutants from Fixed Sources. Among them, 16 gravel factories have installed CCTVs at the entrances, exits and car washes in accordance with the City’s autonomous regulations, and had them connected to the Environmental Protection Bureau to enable the project personnel to monitor them four times a day for pollution prevention. During the monitoring, pollution was found 60 times and the operators were required to improve immediately. It is estimated the particulate pollutants are reduced by 0.39 tons as a result. During the project period, 268 company-times of inspections were conducted according to fugitive substance management measures; deficiencies were found in 63 company-times of inspections, and negative points were taken and the operators were required to improve. 4 operators had negative points exceeding 10 and were reported and penalized by the Environmental Protection Bureau, and improvement was required within a time limit.
As of the end of 2019, there were 2,523 stationary pollution source in the City. The actual annual emissions of major pollutants were 3,013 tons of particulate pollutants, 4,703 tons of sulfur oxides, 13,721 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 19,126 tons of volatile organic compounds, showing a reduction from those in 2018. In summary, the specific pollution improvements and reductions achieved by the project include the following: 128 fuel oil boilers converted the fuel to natural gas, negotiations were completed with 7 plants such as the Datan Power Plant to reduce emissions, 33 processes were found improved in the permit inspection, 55 plants were found improved in the fugitive pollution source inspection, improvement was made 60 times in the monitoring of gravel fields and roads were cleaned, 107 key factories were inspected in Guanyin Industrial Zone (43 of them failed to operate according to law and were required to improve), and key pollution sources under public protest (the dyeing and finishing industry, asphalt industry and metal surface treatment industry) were controlled and improved. Meanwhile, the project assisted in the management of 112 boiler processes using raw coal in the City, calculated the raw coal consumption of about 2.74 million tons (71.6% of the approved maximum consumption) which represent a reduction of about 60,000 tons from that in 2018, carried out pollution source inspections based on the 44 poor air quality notifications for improvement and reduction, and coordinated 4 raw coal consuming plants (accounting for 58% of the total consumption in the City) to use good quality coal when the 10 level-one poor air quality notifications occurred (2.8 tons of particulate material reduction and 23.3 tons of sulfur oxide reduction).
After the implementation of this project, it is suggested that sustainable improvement in the future shall include the following: some companies do not have enough understanding or attention to relevant laws and regulations, resulting in high error rates of declaration data and many non-compliance issues, which not only affect the operation schedule but also cost a lot of manpower and time to have them corrected, tracked and improved; therefore, the obligations and responsibilities of the declarer shall be strengthened in the laws and regulations by adding appropriate penalties to those who intentionally or repeatedly make mistakes. At the same time, the charging rate of dioxin and heavy metals in the emission fee is too low to effectively promote the active improvement of the industry, and further efforts can be made to strengthen the comparison and check between the emission fee declared by the operator for the type and amount of raw materials used and the permit-approved data, and continue to strengthen the inspection and control of equipment operation. Continuous improvement and reduction is an important way to maintain the air quality. The City has achieved considerable results in promoting the conversion of boiler fuels to clean fuels. In the future, more pressure for improvement should be placed on the operators who have pipelines passing them by but have no intention to improve, and those who use medium or small-sized boilers which consume raw coal. In addition, the air pollutant discharge standards for boilers should be passed to improve and reduce boiler fuel consumption; for the large-scale factories with good performance in this City, reduction negotiations shall be held and the improvement, and reduction results promised by the operators shall be continuously confirmed one by one. Furthermore, the key industrial zones and pollution sources (the dyeing and finishing industry, asphalt industry and waste disposal industry, etc.) that are subject to protests by the public can be checked and consulted by incorporating permit control and relevant projects to achieve effective improvement.
