To facilitate the construction of the Chianan Irrigation, the “Public Irrigation Canal of Official and Tenants River Irrigation Canal Cooperative” (located in now Chiayi City) was inaugurated on October 6, 1920. The cooperative, established to coordinate administrative affairs, was later renamed the “Public Chianan Canal Cooperative Office” in 1921. In the same year, its new office building was inaugurated on December 11. Additionally, an office in Tainan, located inside now the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, was established in April 1921 to oversee fee charging and land procurement. In 1921, land preparation and foundational projects for the reservoir began. In October, the Wushantou office was established (located in now the Hatta Yoichi Memorial Park in Liujia, Tainan) to oversee the construction projects of the reservoir dam as well as the water inlet and conducting tunnel.
Given the immense challenge of transporting construction materials for the Wushantou Reservoir, Hatta Yoichi proposed replacing human and animal labor with heavy machinery to enhance efficiency, accelerate construction, and maximize productivity. After successfully persuading others, a quarter of the total budget for building the Wushanling Tunnel (also called the Wushanling Water Conducting Tunnel) and the reservoir dam was used to purchase various construction machines, including large steam-powered excavators, drifter drills, air dumpers, giant pumps, and large concrete mixers. Additionally, twelve German-made locomotives were purchased to transport the rocks used in building the dam. These locomotives were connected with over a hundred air dumpers, which utilized steam power to dump the rocks, largely enhancing construction efficiency and progress while lowering the casualties of humans and animals. The use of heavy machinery in the project also helped train a group of technicians who became familiar with operating these machines, benefitting Taiwan’s civil engineering industry. These machines and professionals later played a vital role in other large-scale public construction projects in the 1930s, including the expansion of Keelung and Kaohsiung harbors as well as the construction of the Central Cross-Island Highway.