On Jan. 21, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected an appeal by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), affirming the Taipei High Administrative Court’s rejection of a 2006 development plan for a Central Taiwan Science Park site near Cising Farm (七星農場) in Houli Township (后里), Taichung County, based on an environmental impact assessment (EIA). This is the first time the public has won an environmental legal case against the government.
The development plan was supposed to attract major companies, which would be releasing large amounts of waste water into nearby water channels. The National Science Council’s Central Taiwan Science Park administration has been consistently vague and ambiguous in dealing with concerns about toxins and their volumes and concentrations, the reliability of data and whether the already bad air quality would decline further.
The initial EIA review committee was unable to reach a consensus, and simply moved the proceedings to the next stage, saying that the plan had passed, albeit with conditions. It was eventually passed. Local residents, however, were concerned that the plan would seriously impact their livelihoods and health, and took the issue to court.
Even the EIA committee members who supported the development had their reservations, and attached a number of conditions. They said that, “prior to the commencement of operations, the agencies responsible for the development are to provide a health risk assessment ... and should the assessment reveal long-term adverse health effects on the local populace, the said agency shall undertake to unconditionally abandon the development.”
According to Article 4, Paragraph 2 of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法), an EIA “means an environmental management plan ... conducted prior to project implementation in order to determine ... the potential impact ... on the environment, including the living environment, natural environment and social environment.”
On Jan. 23, the EPA expressed its disbelief, saying it thought the Supreme Administrative Court had “misrepresented the EIA regulations,” and that it intended to “stand up for the rights and independence of the assessment committee.”
On Jan. 31, after it had received the verdict, the EPA again came to its own defense, first making it clear that it would be asking the Central Taiwan Science Park administration to put together more data for the EIA committee to consider, and adding that the plan had been given the go-ahead when the Democratic Progressive Party was in power.
The lion’s share of the article, however, was devoted to explaining how the various documents — permits, licenses, approvals — issued by the agency had to “reach some kind of balance between the health and rights of the public, the principle of legitimate expectation of the original legal facilities of the manufacturers in the park and the livelihood of the workers.”
Does this mean that the various permits, licenses and approvals mentioned no longer count? You would have thought the EPA would be pleased to see people standing up for the environment, despite having its own appeal rejected. However, this turned out not to be the case.
With the exception of the reference to “the health and rights of the public,” the EPA’s response makes no mention of the potential impact of this development on the environment and the health of the people. It looks like the EPA is more interested in development than the environment.
Gloria Hsu is a professor at National Taiwan University’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences and a former member of an environmental impact assessment committee.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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