10.Administration Adjustment

Problem Encountered: The Farm Irrigation Association belongs to the public juridical person and the mechanism to administer the Caogong Canal is closed.

The department in charge of administering the Caogong Canal is the Farm Irrigation Association. From 1990 on, the government started to grant the Farm Irrigation Association with subsidy. However, up to date, the Farm Irrigation Association still keeps its special status of public juridical person, typically closed administrative systems. Although the land resource and hydrological systems along the Caogong Canal are featured with the nature of public property, except the support from the directive members of the Farm Irrigation Association, it is required for government agencies to collect the lands along the river bank by means of procurement. As such, due to the deficiency of overall mapping on surrounding land and irrigating resource under renovation, the situation also confines the administrative status about the administration of the Caogong Canal. The internal departments of the Farm Irrigation Association are also downsized with agriculture decline. Thus, although most lands along the Caogong Canal belong to the Farm Irrigation Association, it poses the attitude of nonintervention without the management responsibilities fulfilled. For example, the Shetzulin Pond is now occupied by residents and some lands are used for livestock cultivation finally resulting in serious pollution in the Caogong Canal caused by animal droppings. When the Farm Irrigation Association faces the situation with irrigating canal lands occupied by local residents, it doesn't resort to the public right power for ban enforcement or punishment, but appeals to legal proceeding against the illegal land occupation actors in the name of landlord.

Solution: The Administration Adjustment

Knowing from the aforesaid problems, although some canal paths of the Caogong Canal are still kept with initial irrigating function, government agencies show no legally administrative intervention and this situation is involved with the problems about current governmental systems and authorities. The past canal paths could be well maintained by farmers' surveillance effort to avoid possible pollution and damage. Yet, recently, due to agriculture decline and reduced resource of the Farm Irrigation Association, the said situation leads to increasingly serious pollution and damage. If we can further transform canal resource into the property commonly possessed by community inhabitants and enhance everyone's common consensus, everyone's effort can be cohered to promote the management and maintenance for environmental resource and the deficiency gap in surveillance can be solved.

Meanwhile, the management mechanism for the canal paths and ponds along the Caogong Canal should be adjusted. Especially for ponds with no irrigating function existing already, the past irrigating resource should be transformed into the environmental resource. The environmental protection should be also considered with land usage by means of rent or proxy management. Governmental authorities and local inhabitants can participate in the management mechanism. The charity usage of lands can be encouraged to reduce the incentive of land taxation. By encouraging the Farm Irrigation Association to release its usage and management right, the problematic deserted urban lands can be well solved.

Reflection

When we face various problems about the Caogong Canal, we suppose the central government authorities should retrieve the hydrological systems of the Caogong Canal under their direct management. The collaborating effort should be commonly made by the Kaohsiung City and County government agencies, the Farm Irrigation Association, the environmental protection organizations, and community inhabitants to reach the common consensus. The problematic pollution and illegal occupation about the Caogong Canal should be continuously under attentive surveillance so that this canal to enrich the Kaohsiung Plain with abundant crops can be maintained permanently.