The release of an ecological survey commissioned by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) showing that there might have been a leak of radioactive materials on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) should serve to bring the issue of nuclear power back into the public spotlight ahead of the elections next month.
A survey of the ground soil around the island showed rising levels of cobalt-60 and cesium-137 — two radioactive byproducts of nuclear fission that could only have come from the thousands of barrels of nuclear waste that Taipower has dumped on the island for decades. The company’s spin doctors have come out with their typical arguments, saying the levels of toxic material in the report by Academia Sinica research fellow Huh Chih-an (扈治安) were well below legal limits and that they were likely the result of minor levels of radioactive dust kicked up by the inspection and repackaging of radioactive waste.
That was a clever bit of spinning by Taipower, pinning the blame for the so-called “leak” on the repacking of nasty old rusty barrels of nuclear waste, something environmentalists had been demanding for years. However, if there really is no leak of radioactive materials on the island as Taipower claims, and any present contamination comes from repacking operations that began four years ago, then cobalt-60 and cesium-137 should not have been detected in the ground soil prior to 2008.
However, Peter Chang (張武修), a professor at Taipei Medical University’s School of Public Health, found radioactive materials in sweet potato and taro fields as early as 1999, and the levels have been rising ever since, from 10 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) when Chang inspected the soil more than a decade ago to 32.9Bq/kg when Huh looked at it this year.
Although Taipower’s nuclear waste management department director, Lee Chin-shan (李清山), says these levels are well below the safety limit of 740Bq/kg, cesium-137 and cobalt-60 tend to accumulate underground, and those surveys were taken from surface soil in agricultural fields and along the coast.
Taipower’s insistence that there has been no radioactive leak is about as trustworthy as the boy who cried wolf. Right from the beginning, the company lied to Tao Aborigines who inhabit Orchid Island, telling them that the nuclear waste dump was a fish canning plant and that it posed no threat. Now it expects the Tao to take their false assurances at face value?
Tao resident Sinam Mafefu says cancer is now the leading cause of death on the island, and points the finger at Taipower. Although this proves nothing — cancer is the leading cause of death throughout the nation — it shows the state of mind of residents who have long been aware that their home is a nuclear dumping ground that Taipower would just as soon forget about.
This nuclear contamination has wider ramifications for the presidential election, with Democratic Progressive Party candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) espousing a policy of phasing out nuclear power in Taiwan, while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) candidate, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), insists on maintaining it. If Ma intends to keep nuclear power plants going, what does he intend to do with the waste? It can’t be exported to North Korea or Papua New Guinea, and there aren’t any Orchid Islands left.
How to ensure Taiwan’s safety from nuclear contamination will be on voters’ minds when they go to the polls on Jan. 14, and the candidate who comes up with the best answers will win points from the public.
A failure by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respond to Israel’s brilliant 12-day (June 12-23) bombing and special operations war against Iran, topped by US President Donald Trump’s ordering the June 21 bombing of Iranian deep underground nuclear weapons fuel processing sites, has been noted by some as demonstrating a profound lack of resolve, even “impotence,” by China. However, this would be a dangerous underestimation of CCP ambitions and its broader and more profound military response to the Trump Administration — a challenge that includes an acceleration of its strategies to assist nuclear proxy states, and developing a wide array
Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are facing recall votes on Saturday, prompting nearly all KMT officials and lawmakers to rally their supporters over the past weekend, urging them to vote “no” in a bid to retain their seats and preserve the KMT’s majority in the Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which had largely kept its distance from the civic recall campaigns, earlier this month instructed its officials and staff to support the recall groups in a final push to protect the nation. The justification for the recalls has increasingly been framed as a “resistance” movement against China and
Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), former chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China and leader of the “blue fighters,” recently announced that he had canned his trip to east Africa, and he would stay in Taiwan for the recall vote on Saturday. He added that he hoped “his friends in the blue camp would follow his lead.” His statement is quite interesting for a few reasons. Jaw had been criticized following media reports that he would be traveling in east Africa during the recall vote. While he decided to stay in Taiwan after drawing a lot of flak, his hesitation says it all: If
Saturday is the day of the first batch of recall votes primarily targeting lawmakers of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). The scale of the recall drive far outstrips the expectations from when the idea was mooted in January by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘). The mass recall effort is reminiscent of the Sunflower movement protests against the then-KMT government’s non-transparent attempts to push through a controversial cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014. That movement, initiated by students, civic groups and non-governmental organizations, included student-led protesters occupying the main legislative chamber for three weeks. The two movements are linked
RSS