Looking back at major social events in Taiwan over the last century, I believe that late Yilan County commissioner Chen Ding-nan’s (陳定南) decision to not allow Formosa Petrochemical Corp to build the sixth naphtha cracker in his county had a great impact on the environment and the residents in that area. It was an historic event to which some additional thought should be given.
At the time, many officials spoke up in favor of Formosa Plastics Group when the government was making the environmental impact assessment of the plant, but they failed to examine the group’s environmental record both at home and abroad. In addition, they did not review Taiwan’s environmental protection standards to find out if they were perhaps too lax or whether law enforcement was accurate.
Still, in the face of the high compensation offered by Formosa Plastics Group, Chen made his view very clear when he said that compensation was not the issue, but rather it was whether or not the plant would be allowed, because from the perspective of national land utilization, Yilan was not an appropriate site for the plant.
Albert Einstein once said: “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.”
Chen insisted that economic development and national income were not the only indexes that counted and that Yilan should be a clean place with clean air, mountains and water. This is the reason why Yilan, 20 years later, can produce Kavalan Whisky there.
If we now look at towns and villages around where the sixth naphtha cracker plant ended up being constructed, in Yunlin County, the plant brought with it pollution, fires and toxic gas leaks, threatening and harming the health of local residents. Today, almost all the teachers and students at the surrounding schools need to wear facemasks in class.
What should we do now? Should the plant be relocated or the schools? Perhaps the best choice for Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬), as she faces problems from the plant’s pollution, is to look back at how Chen handled the case: Compensation is not an issue; the issue is whether the plant can be relocated.
Chan Chang-chuan is a professor at National Taiwan University’s College of Public Health
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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