In compliance to the promulgation of the Hot Spring Act and in response to the close proximity of almost half of the domestic hot spring areas to the quality/quantity protection zones of drinking water sources, the Environmental Protection Administration of Executive Yuan, in the three year duration between 2004 and 2006, has commissioned the National Taiwan University to proceed with planning of the integrated hot spring waste water management and with demonstration of waste water and drainage tutorial, in order to scheme out components of waste water management for the hot spring industry and the preliminary control operations for such management. The “Industry Categorizations and Definitions of Water Pollution Control Act”, which was announced by the Environmental Protection Administration in December 6, 2005, will add hot spring businesses into the category of “food service, tourism, and hotel” industries, and formally incorporating hot spring businesses into industry category, effective July 1, 2007. In order to encourage owners of hot spring businesses to adopt dividing pipe discharge, the less polluted purely bathing waste water is regulated to be readily dischargeable after the application of simple water treatment. Such measure is to encourage owners of hot spring businesses to move toward dividing pipe discharge in treating hot spring waste water, and then it may be anticipated to result in effective reduction of the pollution loads and ecological impacts upon rivers in the hot spring areas. Water pollution control regulations related to hot spring businesses are listed as follow: 1. Industry Categorizations and Definitions of Water Pollution Control Act (Dec. 12, 2005) 2. Rules for Managements of Control Measures and Detection Reporting of Water Pollution Control (Oct. 16, 2006) 3. Rules for Measure Planning and Permit Application Investigation of Water Pollution Control (Oct. 16, 2006) 4. Types, Ranges, and Sizes of Industries Required of Prior Obtained Water Pollution Control Plans (Apr. 26, 2006) 5. Rules for Installation and Management of Dedicated Units and Personnel of Environmental Protection (Mar. 03, 2004) 6. Standards for Water Pollution Control Fee (Aug. 07, 2006) 7. Standards for Effluents (Nov. 26, 2003) A list of 779 hot spring businesses was compiled through the hot spring area checking operation. The database has been established and submitted to Environmental Protection Bureaus of each municipal government as references. Five hot spring businesses have completed the demonstration tutorials. Generally speaking, water quality of discharge effluent is better than that of inflow water once the purely bathing water is treated with simple water treatment facilities. In addition, the following promotion materials and advertising documents have been finished this year: 1. “Water Pollution Control Measure Checking Guidelines for Hot Spring Businesses” of environmental protection departments, 2. publicly available “Promotional Brochure of Hot Spring Business Waste Water Management”, and 3. manufactured “Promotion Video of Hot Spring Business Demonstration Tutorial”. This project has been carried out in the hope of better improved waste water treatment facility operations for hot spring businesses and a more advanced management of hot spring businesses for the environmental protection departments.

Hot spring Act、Hot spring wastewater、 Hot Spring