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Lives are worth more than money
Saturday, Aug 21, 2010, Page 8
Everybody likes to save money, individuals and businesses
alike. The government should do the same, especially by cutting pork-barrel
projects and other waste. However, saving money should not come at the risk of
losing lives.
This is especially true when it comes to firefighting.
So it was very disturbing to find out earlier this week that Taiwan Power Co (Taipower)
has been taking penny-pinching to an absurd extreme by being willing to award
the tender for firefighting responsibilities at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant
to the sole bidder, a firm with no firefighting experience. Taipower dropped
requirements that the winning bidder must have experience, because that would
have driven up the cost of the contract.
Sheer madness.
Although the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant will hopefully never need to bring its
firefighting brigade into action, one would still hope it would be fully
staffed, fully trained and well equipped.
Accidents do happen.
For example, the firefighting brigade at the Third Nuclear Power Plant was
summoned in June last year when a fire broke out at one of the start-up
transformers. That blaze was put out by the automatic fire suppression system,
so the plantˇ¦s firefighting brigade might have appeared superfluous.
However, things went less well for the plantˇ¦s brigade eight years earlier, when
salt deposits caused all four main power transmission lines in the Fengkang and
Hengchun area to fail, triggering a blackout at the power plant that lasted a
little over two hours and became the nationˇ¦s most serious nuclear-plant
incident to date.
When heavy smoke was reported in the control building, the plantˇ¦s fire brigade
couldnˇ¦t enter the building because of a lack of lighting and ventilation
equipment. It had to call the local fire department in Hengchun to request
additional equipment.
The news about the tender bid for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant came hot on the
heels of the announcement that the contract to fight fires in the Hsuehshan
Tunnel was won by a nearby gardening company. Granted, gardeners do need to use
water hoses, but somehow that doesnˇ¦t seem to be enough of a qualification for
being a first responder to a crisis in one of the worldˇ¦s longest tunnels.
The 50-person-strong Shang Hung Gardening will have to double in size to fulfill
the contract by hiring almost 50 new employees. It will also have to ensure the
upkeep of firefighting equipment and staff three stations in the tunnel 24 hours
a day.
Itˇ¦s hard not to compare these examples of risky penny-pinching with the example
of semiconductor manufacturer UMC, which took the initiative in 1994 to
establish its own fire department, staffed by a dozen or so full-time employees,
backed up by more than 100 trained volunteer firefighters from the firmˇ¦s
employees. UMC likes to boast it has the most highly educated fire brigade in
the nation, since many of its volunteers have at least a masterˇ¦s degree.
The National Fire Agencyˇ¦s local departments provide the necessary backup for
private and state-run companiesˇ¦ brigades, but we do not need to make its job
harder or more dangerous by allowing unqualified private firms to become the
first responders at critical sites. If UMC can afford to form, train and equip a
fire brigade on its own, we should demand nothing less from state-run
corporations.
Privatization and outsourcing is all the rage among governments at all levels
around the world. However, such cost-saving measures should not place human
lives at risk, as Taipower and the government appear wont to do.
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