The project aims to assist the Environmental Protection Bureau(EPB) of Pingtung County Government to administer the various programs scheme, subjects and methods. By reviewing what projects have been finished over time to assist the EPB in dealing with Air Pollution agendas and implementing the plan. So that to achieve the goal of improving air quality by effectively integrating the power of various projects. In addition, in line with the current capacity control plan and the total control plan promoted by the National Environmental Protection Agency, the air quality improvement should again be aligned with our schedule including long-term, mid-term, or short-term goal as a proposition in the control of the air quality in the future. The duration of the project is from 27th March 2020 to 26th March 2021. The executive summary of implementation is as follows.
In 2020, there are 25 projects of improving air quality conducted by Pingtung County. They can be categorized into stationary sources, mobile sources, fugitive sources, integrated management and monitoring, and local characteristic research plans. The control strategy is based on the Pingtung County Air Pollution Prevention and Control Plan (shown in Figure I below). The key points include strengthening local characteristics and improving main issues, collaborating with the EPB to promote various operations. In 2020, we assisted EPB in promoting eight major projects to improve air quality. Pingtung County has become the only county that PM2.5 did not turn into a red damage alert for two years among all counties on the west coast of Taiwan. In 2020, the annual average concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 were 30.6 and 15.5 µg/m3, which is the lowest number in history. According to the survey of the Public Opinion and Market Research Center from the Sun Yat-sen University entrusted in 2020, people’s perception of overall air quality is satisfying, 35% in 2018, 56% in 2019 and 77% in 2020, which means an increase of 21% compared to the last year. The eight major projects include:
1. The “Nighthawk Early Bird” project has evolved again. EPB established a cross-unit sensor laboratory and test sampling team with the Health Bureau to improve the timeliness of inspections. 1,223 cases were checked in domestic livestock farms. Animal husbandry complaint reports have dropped 19% from 2019.
2. EPB built the first environmentally friendly Ghost Money Burner in the country for citizens. The annual processing capacity is expected to reach 1,000 tons. The amount of burning ghost money is about 5 times higher than the 270 tons last year.
3. Using micro-sensors to monitor various inspections and counsel, the cases of main industrial areas in the county have reduced 21% of complaints.
4. By promoting pollution reduction measures, 159 boiler improvements have been completed during the past four years. A 10 times increase from the number of 15 improved in 2017, and the overall boiler improvement rate increased by 41%.
5. The motorcycle pollution management plan is to eliminate high-pollution motorcycles and to promote low-pollution vehicles. There are 34,364 motors have been eliminated during the term 1 to 4, and the number of vehicles in term 1-4 has been reduced by 17.1%. The total number of registered electric motorcycles reached 15,779, the highest number registered without Taiwan’s six special municipalities.
6. 456 high-polluting diesel vehicles have been eliminated, and 42 diesel vehicles apply for adjustment and repair assistance have been completed. With the cooperation of the county government reduction team, inter-bureau, and civil unions, 68 diesel vehicles have completed adding smoke filters, so do all trash cars in 33 towns to reduce black smoke emissions from squid vehicles.
7. The action plan for air pollution control in Pingtung County Sand and Dredging Zone, using diversified scientific and technological monitoring equipment to increase the improvement rate of pollution. The dredging project reduction rate was 76.1%, which was 8.6% higher than the 2019 national dredging project reduction rate (67.5%). The overall Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) air inspection and control violation rate in the dredging zone has dropped by 58% compared to 2019. The cleanliness of the roads increased by 15.1% compared with that in 2019.
8. The establishment of the intelligent system monitoring open-air burning and optimizing diversified agricultural waste treatment brings the open-air burning case has been significantly reduced by 23% compared with the same period in 2019, and the treatment rate of agricultural waste has reached 88% for long-term crops; short-term crops reached a record high of 97%.
According to the pollutants measured at the Air Quality inspection stations at Pingtung County in 2020, the number of days which was poor air quality of O3 and PM2.5 was reported 198 in total. It is 50 days less than last year. Mainly are due to the increase of O3 by 10 days and the reduction of PM2.5 by 40 days. Currently, O3 and PM2.5 are the primary indicative pollutants in Pingtung County. When the air quality gets worse, the reporting system will be activated and send back the data via adoption mechanism from each inspection station and the major pollution sources. The controlling actions start to reinforce after poor air quality was reported. In 2020, 136 days were reported, and the reducing amount of each was 350.9 tons of TSP, 1.05 tons of SOX, 0.46 tons of NOX and 1.43 tons of NMHC. Overall, the rate of poor air quality is 96.9%.
From the current year, the scheduled progress of each project is between 60~100% towards completion. The total implementation rate is 91%, and the analysis of achievement is graded as 92.9. Until the end of December, the reducing amount of PM10, PM2.5, SOX, NOX and NMHC is 543.8, 254.28, 20.3, 515.14 and 339.34 tons, reaching 100% of the target. In promoting air quality purification areas, we have accomplished the assessment of 112 purification areas. There are newly built green spaces and bare land improvement via subsidies and planting projects in 10 areas.
In addition, to further explore the cause of pollution, evaluate and improve the effectiveness of control, the main tasks of this year focus on implementing various air pollution control works and regional air quality deterioration prevention, strengthening air quality environmental load data analysis, formulating the air pollution preventing plan proposal, conducting the survey of public satisfaction for air pollution control task, cooperating with the promotion work in Taiwan's Southwest Air Quality Control Area, establishing Air Quality Purification Zones and promoting low-emission vehicles, enhancing the control of achievements, as well as undertake green network planning and promotion.
