Time has long been running out for Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) low-level nuclear waste storage facility on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu), even as the company has tried — and repeatedly failed — to find somewhere to dispose of the waste permanently.
Preliminary options included four uninhabited islands, but once the idea was revealed, objections were raised. True, there is no one living on the islands to protest the plan, but the local governments that administer the islands are not having any of it.
Faced with this “not in my backyard” attitude, Taipower has found itself back at square one.
However, it turns out that Taiwanese have been unknowingly living with an even deadlier nuclear waste problem for years, after declassified Italian government documents revealed that a shipping company dumped 200,000 barrels of nuclear waste off the nation’s coast in the 1990s.
While the media and the public have been up in arms since the story broke, the authorities simply trotted out the old “there is no risk to the public” line.
According to the Italian documents, organized crime groups in Italy took large amounts of nuclear waste from European and Asian nations for a considerable fee and then disposed of it for a fraction of the cost. The cheapest way of eliminating it was simply to chuck it into the sea.
Ships loaded with nuclear waste sailed to Africa and, apparently, Taiwan, and dumped their cargoes into the sea; in some cases the entire ship was simply scuttled. According to the reports, about 90 ships were involved.
The 2004 tsunami washed some of these barrels onto Somalia’s coast, exposing the scandal to the world and locals to radiation — many of whom developed radiation poisoning.
A private British military contractor deployed armed vessels to prevent further dumping of radioactive and industrial waste off the coast of Somalia, but many local fishermen — unable to compete with foreign trawlers fishing in local waters — ended up turning to piracy to make a living.
The situation in Somalia is a prime example of how things can go wrong when companies and countries start looking for faraway places in which to dispose of unwanted waste.
If the declassified Italian documents are telling the truth, it could spell disaster for earthquake-prone Taiwan. Should a tsunami near this nation dredge up thousands of barrels of nuclear waste from the ocean floor, would the government have the necessary response measures in place? Given its almost lackadaisical response so far, the notion appears unlikely.
After all, it is not just the original dumps sites that would be a problem; ocean currents could carry the barrels to several places along the nation’s coast. Is the government prepared for the kind of nuclear disaster that Somalia had to confront?
Under former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administrations, Taipower was able to get away with an apparently cavalier approach to nuclear waste storage and disposal as it touted the safety of nuclear power as an energy source. Just ask the residents of Orchid Island, who have been fighting both the government and the firm for years to get rid of the waste stored there.
It is not fine that Taipower thinks it can dump its waste on uninhabited islands because there is nobody living on them to protest.
It is not fine that the ones primarily protesting Taipower’s plans are the ones most closely affected by them, such as local governments or local residents: Everyone in Taiwan should be saying no and demanding a more responsible nuclear policy.
Taipower preaches that nuclear power is safe and inexpensive, but it ignores the waste disposal issue and the related costs, which make nuclear power a lot more expensive.
Taipower’s waste disposal problems reinforce the rightness of the drive by the Democratic Progressive Party and others for a nuclear-free homeland.
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