Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) is about to apply for a renewal of the expiring permits for their petroleum coke and bituminous coal-fired power plant at the Mailiao (麥寮) petrochemical complex in Yunlin County.
There have been media reports that the nation’s energy supply will be tight this summer. This is why the Ministry of Economic Affairs has coordinated the extension of permits in the hope of avoiding potential energy rationing.
However, Yunlin County is a Class III control region for PM2.5 pollution and academic studies show that residents in the coastal areas of Yunlin and Changhua counties face greater health risks than in other areas.
The risk of power rationing can therefore not be the only factor when deciding whether to approve the permit extensions.
Several disputes have surrounded the extension of Formosa Plastic’s permits in recent years.
When the company applied for a permit extension for the Mailiao cogeneration plant, the Yunlin County Government requested that FPG reduce the use of raw coal by 20 percent and shortened the validity of the permit to two years. Formosa Plastics then filed an administrative appeal that was rejected last month.
The verdict showed that the county government’s review was based on preventing air pollution, protecting public health and gradually reducing the use of raw coal, and that it neither constituted abuse of the government’s discretionary powers nor violated the principle of fairness.
In September last year, Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp applied for an extension of three cogeneration boiler process operation permits.
The Changhua County Government rejected the applications on grounds that the company had failed to follow through on its pledge to implement the stricter controls required by an earlier environmental assessment. The decision led to a dispute.
The Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) Petitions and Appeals Committee on March 10 rejected the county government’s administrative ruling, although it affirmed the legitimacy of the county government’s desire to protect air quality.
This series of events tells us that reviews of permit applications offers an excellent opportunity to push companies to improve their environmental management practices.
Several dozen permits for the Mailiao plant are about to expire, and the authorities should use this as an opportunity to take a stern look at the applications and set an example for how to link the issues of controls and permits.
Taiwan is not unique in using reviews of applications for permit renewal as a means to reduce the environmental impact of factories on their neighboring areas.
In Rodeo, California, Unocal’s Rodeo San Francisco Refinery released noxious gases in August 1994, but due to an inadequate environmental monitoring system and the resulting lack of information, local residents were unable to provide evidence of any harmful emissions.
With the assistance of experts, residents developed methods for citizen science to overcome shortcomings in air pollution monitoring, which helped them gather evidence and point to shortcomings in US government and industry monitoring standards.
Rodeo residents discovered that when the refinery needed to apply for permits — and only then — it was willing to deal with residents directly.
Therefore, the approval of an application for land use was used to demand that the company install the most advanced real-time air monitoring equipment and that monitoring data be made available in real time.
The review was also used to gain an understanding of the limitations of different kinds equipment and the need for maintenance and upgrades to monitoring systems, and to demand public participation in the monitoring program.
The process of approving the permit provided an excellent bargaining chip for residents. They demanded that the refinery renew and upgrade its monitoring systems and improve analysis of environmental data.
Reviews before permit renewals offer an opportunity to evaluate and tighten demands for environmental management.
The government should respond to regional environmental problems by using its discretionary powers and stop treating reviews as a formality — a matter of approval or rejection.
Instead, the permit system should be treated as an opportunity to hold plant operators accountable, and demand that they respond to local concerns and improve the local environment.
The Californian experience has showed that involving local residents in air pollution monitoring and jointly developing methods adapted to the local experience, combined with information transparency, will not only improve monitoring methods and responses to local environmental problems, it will also help rebuild public trust in the government’s environmental management.
Nothing should stop the central government and the Yunlin County Government from taking advantage of the permit extension process for the Mailiao complex to stress its commitment to environmental governance and ease the longstanding environmental problems in the coastal regions of Yunlin and Changhua counties.
Tu Wen-ling is a professor in the public administration department of National Chengchi University. Shih Chia-liang is a post-doctoral researcher in the same department.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Labubu, an elf-like plush toy with pointy ears and nine serrated teeth, has become a global sensation, worn by celebrities including Rihanna and Dua Lipa. These dolls are sold out in stores from Singapore to London; a human-sized version recently fetched a whopping US$150,000 at an auction in Beijing. With all the social media buzz, it is worth asking if we are witnessing the rise of a new-age collectible, or whether Labubu is a mere fad destined to fade. Investors certainly want to know. Pop Mart International Group Ltd, the Chinese manufacturer behind this trendy toy, has rallied 178 percent
Life as we know it will probably not come to an end in Japan this weekend, but what if it does? That is the question consuming a disaster-prone country ahead of a widely spread prediction of disaster that one comic book suggests would occur tomorrow. The Future I Saw, a manga by Ryo Tatsuki about her purported ability to see the future in dreams, was first published in 1999. It would have faded into obscurity, but for the mention of a tsunami and the cover that read “Major disaster in March 2011.” Years later, when the most powerful earthquake ever
My youngest son attends a university in Taipei. Throughout the past two years, whenever I have brought him his luggage or picked him up for the end of a semester or the start of a break, I have stayed at a hotel near his campus. In doing so, I have noticed a strange phenomenon: The hotel’s TV contained an unusual number of Chinese channels, filled with accents that would make a person feel as if they are in China. It is quite exhausting. A few days ago, while staying in the hotel, I found that of the 50 available TV channels,
Chinese intimidation of Taiwan has entered a chilling new phase: bolder, more multifaceted and unconstrained by diplomatic norms. For years, Taiwan has weathered economic coercion, military threats, diplomatic isolation, political interference, espionage and disinformation, but the direct targeting of elected leaders abroad signals an alarming escalation in Beijing’s campaign of hostility. Czech military intelligence recently uncovered a plot that reads like fiction, but is all too real. Chinese diplomats and civil secret service in Prague had planned to ram the motorcade of then-vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and physically assault her during her visit to the Czech Republic in March last
RSS