Baileng Canal Intake

The intake for Baileng Canal (白冷圳), which provides irrigation and drinking water for the Xinshe Plateau, was completed in 1932. The Governor-General’s Office had commissioned the engineer Isoda Kaneo (磯田謙雄) in 1927 to find a way of supplying water for the sugarcane seedling nursery it maintained on the plateau, where acidic soils and a long dry season complicated cultivation. Water is drawn from the Dajia River (大甲溪) through a control shaft cut into the rock and a settling basin. It then runs 16.6 kilometers by way of 22 tunnels and three inverted siphons to a distribution pool at Yuanku (圓堀) in Xinshe, falling barely 23 meters along the way. Shuifen Shinto Shrine was built on the slope above the intake and completed in the same month as the canal.

Construction of Tianlun Power Plant in the 1950s reworked the head of the canal, which now takes most of its water from the plant’s tailrace on the opposite bank. The 921 Earthquake lifted the intake some 2.2 meters and damaged roughly half the length of the canal; repairs were not finished until 2003. Although not regularly open to the public, despite its heritage status, the intake may be accessible from a pathway on the far side of Tianlun Baileng Suspension Bridge (天輪白冷吊橋) in Heping District, Taichung.