Water Hazard! --When Golf Courses Make Bad Neighbors

Hill-covered Yushan is in Hsinchu County, out on the way toward Chutung The more than 100 families that live in the neighborhood are clustered along the two sides of its single asphalt road. The small road follows river beds, and the homes of its residents are spread between these river beds and the hill sides. Lush green paddy fields are found here and about. Egrets fly overhead.

In this peaceful mountain district, most of the young leave to find work, while their elders stay, accustomed to wresting their living from the hillsides. They dig for bamboo shoots, plant fruit trees, raise fish in ponds and help to care for their grandchildren.

But the three golf courses built over the last five years have disturbed the pace of life here.

Location of Kuanhsi Township's Eight Golf Courses （Map by Lee Su-ling）

You make a fortune on land. Poor me.

Although it may just be a small mountain village, its rhythms are in synch with those of the greater environment. In 1987, when plans for the Second North-South Highway passed and word spread that you would be able to get from Taipei to Kuanhsi in half an hour, people were talking about one thing all over town: "City folk have more money than they can spend and complain that the interest is too low in banks. They are coming with their money to buy land." The new affluence in Taiwan caused many to start playing golf, which in turn caused an explosion in the building of golf courses. And since a 18-hole golf course requires a 60- or 70-hectare expanse, speculative fever came to the mountains.

At the time, the government had not yet banned golf courses from forested areas, and these were favored by those building courses. Eight different courses were built in Kuanhsi, with three in Yushan alone.

The land was bought up at a furious pace. "To speak truthfully, I've been working in the hills a long time, and I'm sick of them," says farmer Liu Ming-tseng, in his high rain boots and a tee-shirt. "My family has been in the hills for several generations, and our lot hasn't changed." Because the hillsides are unsuitable for mechanized farming, the farmers here work more and reap less than their counterparts on the plains. In the Chianan Plain, one fen (66.6 square meters) of rice paddy can produce as much as 10,000 Chinese pounds of rice, whereas here in the mountains it will produce only about 5000-6000. "If people want to buy the land and the price is right, they'll get it." Someone adds that many people have sold a hectare of land for as little as NT$800,000-900,000.

But once the buying and selling had started in earnest, the price for land exploded in 1988. Who would have expected that those aiming to build golf courses would be willing to buy one hectare of forest for nearly NT$10 million? When the prices got this high, however, those holding the land weren't the locals. Yu Sen-hsiung, the chairman of the recently opened Sun City Golf and Country Club, points out that when he came to buy land, the price had already risen seven or eight fold, and he acquired the rights from a businessman named Hsieh from Neili.

Many of the locals sold a hectare or two and what they got still wouldn't have been enough to purchase a membership at Sun City, which costs NT$2.5 million. "Only Yeh Pu-chien, an elected representative from the area, really made any money selling land," says Peng Liang-fu, who runs a general store. When Sun City was purchasing land, it had no choice but to buy Yeh's land, and by this time the price had already rocketed. Yeh, who had resisted selling his land, was finally moved to do so.

After work began on the golf courses, the Lo family pond went from clear to cloudy. Father and son hold up photographs tracing its changing water quality.

The high and the low

While some grumble about missing the big bucks, many more of Yushan's residents who didn't sell their land have felt from the very start that golf courses were "hens that only lay chicken shit."

Because the farming and forest land sold was largely located above the village, when construction started on the Sun City, Laoyeh and Yushan courses in 1989 and '90, water that had been clear was turning yellow and cloudy.

Farmer Lo Ching-shan has a natural fish pond beneath the Sun City course. For over a hundred years his family had been using this spring-fed pond for drinking water and irrigation. UP into very recently, some dozen neighboring households had all been drinking the water from the pond, but when construction began on the Sun City course four years ago, run-off from the golf course polluted their water. Turned yellow and murky, the pond surface no longer reflects the sky and clouds, and the fish that the Los had raised here for generations have gone belly up. "When the people from the golf course came and saw what had happened, they gave us NT$10,000 in compensation and asked us not to raise fish for another eight years," Lo notes. They said it would take eight years for the water to be safe.

When you raise your head from looking at the pond, the edge of the golf course comes into view. "What for God's sake is that coming out of it?" say Lo and his son. For the moment at least, they can't drink the pond's water.

In Yushan's first Lin (neighborhood subdistrict), eight homes are situated beneath the Laoyeh Golf Course, with the river to their front and hillside to their back. On a rainy day the residents worry that the rocks on the hillside will jar loose and roll down on them. At night,when they hear the "Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!" of pebbles falling, everybody rushes out of their houses, which, like the road, are covered in yellow earth washed off the hill.

Eleven-year-old Huang Hui-feng says a yellow mud bath comes with every rain. Their houses used to be snug and dry, but these days "when there's a downpour without, there's a puddle within," He used to like to sleep on the floor in the summer, but now it's always damp, and his mother doesn't even permit him to play on it. In the living room decorative grates like those found beneath the eves in traditional Chinese family compounds used to provide ventilation. But now with the mud looking to come in any way it can, the Huang's have sealed them up with cement.

Workers taking a break for lunch from laying down sod at the Laoyeh Golf and Country Club. After construction on the golf courses began, local residents became their best source of labor.

Cutting trees and looking for water

Since work on the golf courses began, the flow out of the pipes "is only 30 percent of what it once was," says Tseng Wen-tou, who lives in Yushan's twelfth lin. When you draw no water from your well, then you've got to spend money to dig another "It's really very strange. Since I was small, it didn't matter how little water fell from the sky, there was always water. But as soon as work began on the golf courses, the water disappeared," explains Chang Yu-shun, shaking his head as he surveys the yellow mud now filling his fish pond.

In truth the lack of water isn't hard to figure. Sun City's course was finished at the beginning of the year, and the other two courses have started laying down the sod for their lawns. Now the hilltops come one after another like verdant sand dunes, covered by fairways and greens. Golf courses originated along the beaches, and Chang Shihchiao, a professor of geology at National Taiwan University, says that moving them to the hillsides will naturally dramatically alter the valleys.

As the land was purchased one plot after another, the hilltops of Yushan became covered with groups of several dozen bulldozers, cutting away at the hills. "They had to cut away 10 to 20 hills for each golf course." A resident named Peng, born and raised in Yushan, who now lives beneath the Sun City course, says that Sun City carved away numerous hill tops that were previously forest rarely visited by people.

Because the three are all standard 18-hole courses, the area developed was enough to build 4500 3600-square-foot single family homes. Among them, the Laoyeh Country Club has the largest area of any course in Taiwan. Chang Shih-chiao points out that if an 18-hole golf course was given over to forest, it could hold l.5 million cubic meters of water; whereas a golf course lawn consumes about 1500 tons of water a day, about the same as 4500 residents of Taipei. Director Fan Yang-lou says the Laoyeh Course, which is only half covered by lawn, consumes only a little less than 100 tons a day.

With the hill tops cut flat and the forests that stored water dug dry, there is nowhere for the water to go when it rains, and this results in flooding. In the dry season, in order to keep the lawns green, they've got to dig ponds and reservoirs to prevent there being a lack of water. There are limits to the amount of water that these can hold, so the courses have still applied to build some dozen wells, draining greatly the water stored underground. "The result is that the water level in the wells of nearby residents has dropped markedly," said Chang Shihchiao, pinpointing one of the many problems caused by building golf courses.

In Yushan they used to be able to shove a rod of split bamboo between two rocks, and water would seep out. Wells weren't necessary, for the hills were their reservoir. Now everyone is going everywhere looking for sources of water. Some dozen families who live in the second lin have had to go 2 kilometers away to find a source of water.

And the people of Yushan fear something else. How many pesticides will these three courses use?

The Laoyeh Golf and Country Club. Covering vast expanses in the hills, golf courses often require major topographical reworking.

Car wash water instead of mountain springs

"The pesticides for golf courses come by the truck load," says Lo Yu-yen, who works in the town hall. Local who work at the golf courses say privately that the courses use vast quantities of pesticides, and farmers say that the golf course pesticides are all bought directly from the manufacturer because Kaunhsi's three or four farming supply stores don't stock large enough quantities.

Kuanhsi Township had always had few factories and little waste water, and pollution of water sources was even more unheard of in the Yushan neighborhood on the outskirts of town.

For a long time now, Kuanhsi has had a simple water plant, but it's downstream, and town residents drink the water from their own wells. Chen Yu-hua, the principal of Yushan Elementary School, says they use town's water for bathing, watering flowers and washing cars. When Yushan neighborhood residents asked about getting hooked up to the town's water supply, they brought chuckles to those at the town hall: "You want to drink car washing water instead of mountain spring water?"

From the looks of it, the golf courses are changing the story of water usage in Yushan.

Yu Sen-hsiung, the owner of the Sun City Golf & Country Club and known as President Yu, says that he only sprays insecticides at his golf course four times a year. But the soil under the golf courses is very sandy. Laoyeh's Director of Operations Liu says sand was added under their fairways to make walking more comfortable for the members. Lawns over sand require a lot of chemical fertilizer to grow well and spraying to prevent weeds, bugs and damage from disease. And to gain control over these pests in a short time, the courses sometimes resort to using highly toxic chemicals. In 1982 the EPA determined that five golf courses in protected water zones used dangerous chemicals. Golf courses in Japan spend an average of 115 million yen (NT$23 million) on pesticides every year.

Tseng Wen-tou, who uses a water source below the golf courses, has heard that they water their lawns with pesticides. When he asked the EPA to make a chemical analysis of the water, he was told that he would have to pay NT$400. He personally asked the EPA to buy jars that are made for holding water for examination so he can put water in one and send it in to be tested.

With doubts about water quality and water sources unabated, Liu Fu-chun, the nearly 70-year-old general executive of the Yushan Neighborhood Community Development Committee, and Yushan's 80-year-old neighborhood chief went to even deeper mountain districts recently and discovered another spring. Liu hopes that the three golf courses can help pay for water purifying equipment up there and for pipes that will allow the whole neighborhood to use the water.

"People say that whenever there is building, there is damage, but the problem is that they're not hurting themselves but rather hurting us," says one resident of Yushan. The golf courses shouldn't ignore what they have done to the local people.

The Sun City Golf Course built another riverside well for residents. Unfortunately, there are too many impurities in its water, and it can't be used. After the golf courses came to the mountains, residents that never before worried about water often found themselves looking for new sources of it. （photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang）

You build, I suffer

"Frankly, the owners also hope to buy some more land so as to prevent creating disputes with the locals," says Laoyeh's Fan Yang-lou. Because the area developed for the golf course is large, the neighboring residents will be affected in some way or another. "Land is cheap, but construction costs are high," he says with a sardonic smile. It's not as easy to build golf courses here as it is on the plains, and the retaining of the soil and water are much more difficult.

The developer, aware of his own limitations, is generally quite accommodating. "A farmer just need call and say that soil has spilled onto his path or into his water source, and a bulldozer will be there to help time after time," says one builder. But cleaning up the disasters that have come with every rain have driven him to his wits' end. Yu Sen-hsiung says that he just wants the golf course "to go smoothly" and doesn't want to give memberships to the famous or have some big shot tee off at the grand opening, and he won't argue with you over the problems of golf courses. In truth his attitude isn't overbearing.

In order to keep up good relations, he hires locals as much as possible. Some who always worked up on the hillsides and others who used to do odd jobs down in the village now come to work as groundskeepers or caddies. The daughter-in-law of the neighborhood chief says her mother-in-law, bored of sitting around the house, has taken a job sweeping the floors at Sun City. The scenery is beautiful, the money good, and she enjoys seeing famous people. Several reporters from Taiwan Television have come to tee off, as has Taiwanese opera star Yang Li-hua.

Lo Yu-yen, a graduate of Kuanhsi's Agricultural High School who works in the town hall, makes only a third of what her former classmates do working as caddies. "After tips, they're pulling in more than NT$40,000 a month,"she says. But her family won't let her work on the golf courses, because pushing around golf clubs for someone else isn't dignified work.

The Sun City Golf Course employs locals. Though some think caddying is arduous work, the pay is better than in local factories.

My son wants to be a caddie?

The Sun City Golf and Country Club is the most "benevolent" says Kuanhsi resident Hsu Hsuehchi, whose irrigation pond has dried up as a result of the golf course. Only Sun City's Yu sen-hsiung, who started out by importing aluminum doors and windows, dares to use local residents, unlike the other golf courses in Kuanhsi which are afraid of locals learning about their use of insecticides and illegal dumping of waste water and simply don't hire them.

Unfortunately some Yushan residents still aren't grateful. People on the hillsides watch as the river bed fills with sand and rises before them day by day. The workers building the courses sometimes use its broad expanses of sand as a practice range for golf. Even a two-year-old girl who lives across from it knows that golf balls are there for the picking.

When Huang Hui-feng, a fourth grader at the Yuli Elementary school below the Laoyeh Golf and Country Club, is asked about what he wants to do when grows up, he first replies that he wants to pick up balls at the golf course. "Only joking,"he assures his questioner. "I really want to play on the national basketball team." It turns out that when school lets out he likes to ride his bike to the general store and talk to the golf course construction workers there. People have told him that he can go to the golf course and work as a caddie when Gazing at the golf course across the way, Chen Yu-hua, principal of the Yushan Elementary School (whose faculty and students number only 60 all told), says that the golf courses may temporarily benefit a few people who live there. As for how the courses are affecting the values of the local residents, more time is needed to tell. But for its effects on the greater environment, the results are in. A huge space has been given to a small number of people on which to whack around little balls. It's an extravagant leisure activity that sacrifices the rights of too many.

The children of the family that runs the general store have found quite a few balls that have "flown" off of the golf course. Here in a food canister, they serve as decoration. They're not for sale.

Dissonance

Besides the impact on the environment, many also believe that the golf courses won't help in the development of Yushan. A worker at a course notes that most of the golfers come from Taipei. But when they come, "since the golf course has everything, they won't have anything to do with us," says the owner of a general store. They sleep in a deluxe suite for NT$4000 a night, and get up early to play golf and enjoy the fresh air. As soon as they finish playing they drive away. And so except for a few of its residents now working at the golf course, Yushan hasn't changed.

Or has it? Two rows of Washington coconut trees line the driveway to the Laoyeh Golf and Country Club, and workmen are installing stones from Mauritius to decorate its sign. Sprinkling equipment from America has already been laid out along the course, and the cars arriving are all imported jeeps or sedans. But a few more Mercedes coming and going doesn't mean anything. When you leave the golf course, it's the same old Yushan. Going to distant fields to work, most farmers still ride motorcycles. And the old folks still sit outside their homes chatting and eating the cucumbers they've picked from their gardens. Between the golf courses and what surrounds them, there's conflict but no overlap. The truth is that if the fields and ponds weren't polluted--thus impinging on people's rights--the people of Yushan wouldn't be so against the golf courses. Why not? "Because there are so many mountains hereabouts," cracks a driver for a gravel pit who used to live in Yushan. "Who cares if you dig up a few of them--we're used to it."

Some people hold that Yushan is still Yushan--despite the golf courses. The people haven't changed, and lifestyles are still simple.

You give me a job, I keep quiet

There's a reason for putting it that way. Before the golf courses, quarries had already changed the face of many of Yushan's hills. Yushan, which looks like a sleepy town on the surface, actually lost the peacefulness that should be enjoyed by such rolling countryside long ago. A cement plant has been here for over 30 years, and even today you can hear explosions from it. But its quarries are in a national forest area far from where people live, so it doesn't create as much friction.

Liu Ming-tseng, who farms along the river beneath the Laoyeh Golf and Country Club, says that after people go to the golf course to work, many don't want to get on their employer's bad side and won't be as open in talking about its effects. People who do business with the golf courses, such as those who own gravel pits, likewise shy away from discussing their impact on local people.

"But to say that the golf courses don't have any effects is a lie. Everyone is clear about it inside," says one young woman. The truth of the matter is that the three golf courses of Yushan impinge upon the rights of people beyond the hundred some households of Yushan. The courses all cover about 100 hectares, and the Laoyeh and Yushan courses extend into other districts.

Recently the provincial government allotted NT$500 million for the Fengshan River, which flows across Chutung and Chungli and provides drinking water for more than 100,000 people. Because of damage to the mountains upstream, sand and mud have flowed into the river, and the river bed has risen, affecting the river's water quality and capacity. Soon they will have to dredge. The accumulation in the river is a result of several factors, including logging and mining, but the golf courses naturally play a part.

The greater good

Yushan's quarries and golf courses are all positioned along tributaries of the upper Fengshan River. Let's just say this: Five of the eight golf courses of Kuanhsi are right beside this water source, including all three of Yushan's. Someone who works in the gravel pits says that over ten trucks are required to replace the sand that runs off after a big rain. "It's good this way," one young driver jokes, "because it goes back to nature." A golf course requires 10,000 cubic meters of sand a year. Imagine how much is lost. No wonder the river beds are rising. "There's no way to stop it, because all of the hilltops in Yuanshan have been bought up."

And though only 100 households may be the neighbors of the three golf courses in Yushan, and though the courses haven't been able to shake up the style of life there, the effects of this water pollution aren't limited to the residents of Yushan area but extend to more than 100,000 people who live in Chutung and Chungli.

Are the people affected in Yushan really so few?

In recent decades there has been an outflow of people from Yushan, but "times change," says a nearly 70-year-old Liu Fu-chun, who worries about where to find drinking water. Because the air isn't good in the city and living space so cramped, he thinks that many of the young people might start coming back to live.

He especially holds out hope today when transportation is so convenient. Yet though the air in the mountains may be good and there may be land available, if there's no water, then it's no use talking about anything. "Can it be that there's no hope that the younger generation can return?" he asks.

[Picture Caption]

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The golf courses dotting the hillsides have changed the environment for the residents of Yushan.

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Location of Kuanhsi Township's Eight Golf Courses (Map by Lee Su-ling)

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After work began on the golf courses, the Lo family pond went from clear to cloudy. Father and son hold up photographs tracing its changing water quality.

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Workers taking a break for lunch from laying down sod at the Laoyeh Golf and Country Club. After construction on the golf courses began, local residents became their best source of labor.

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The Laoyeh Golf and Country Club. Covering vast expanses in the hills, golf courses often require major topographical reworking.

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The Sun City Golf Course built another riverside well for residents. Unfortunately, there are too many impurities in its water, and it can't be used. After the golf courses came to the mountains, residents that never before worried about water often found themselves looking for new sources of it. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)

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The Sun City Golf Course employs locals. Though some think caddying is arduous work, the pay is better than in local factories.

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The children of the family that runs the general store have found quite a few balls that have "flown" off of the golf course. Here in a food canister, they serve as decoration. They're not for sale.

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Some people hold that Yushan is still Yushan--despite the golf courses. The people haven't changed, and lifestyles are still simple.