A new attraction has been added to Taichung City’s “blue ribbon”! The city's Dongda River Water Environment and Neighboring Area Environmental Improvement Project, subsidized by the EPA, has been completed and opened under the joint witness of EPA Deputy Minister Hung-Teh Tsai, Taichung City Deputy Mayor Jung Da Linghu, Tunghai University President Mao-Jiun Wang, National Taiwan University Professor Hong-Yuan Lee and the participating public, creating a new landscape for the Dongda riverside.

Dongda River flows through the Tunghai Night Market commercial district and Taichung Industrial Park. As economic development along the river grew, the water quality and the river environment gradually deteriorated over the years. In an attempt to restore the river’s ecosystem, Taichung City Government reviewed the overall environmental planning of Fazi River and its surrounding areas and collaborated with the EPA to implement the first phase of the Dongda River remediation project in 2015. And with the resources from the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program, Taichung City continued to work with the EPA to implement the second phase of the Dongda River improvement project with the objective to solve the wastewater problem in the night market commercial district located upstream of Dongda River.

The project invested $300 million to establish a new on-site gravel contact oxidation treatment facility with a daily capacity of 8,000 metric tons and simultaneously upgrade the existing on-site water purification facilities (2,000 metric tons per day). In addition, to handle the high grease content of the night market wastewater, the degreasing function of the pre-treatment facilities was strengthened. Now the influent wastewater is directed to the underground gravel contact oxidation treatment facility for purification after screening, desilting, and grease removal and discharged back to Dongda River to supplement the base flow and be used for environmental landscaping in the surrounding areas. The river pollution index is expected to move from “seriously polluted” to “lightly polluted."

The project covered the campus of Tunghai University and was strongly supported by the university, which actively participated from the planning and design stage and worked together with the government to create a high-quality water environment for education. It is a model of public-private cooperation and has won the Excellence Award for Facility Engineering at the 21^st Public Works Golden Quality Awards in 2021 as well as many other awards.

Excerpt from Major Environmental Policies, January 2022