EPA delays Pinnan project decision

Under heavy pressure from environmentalists and residents in southern Taiwan, a committee under the Cabinet-level Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) decided yesterday to postpone sending a plan for the controversial Pinnan Industrial Complex (濱南?u業區) for a final EPA review next month.

At an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) review meeting for the project yesterday, the project's developers, the Tuntex Group (東帝?h) and Yieh-loong Co. (燁隆), claimed that the percentage of lagoon area to be included in the development plan has been reduced to only 19.8 percent of the total site area -- from the previous 29 percent -- in a bid to leave a larger habitat site for the endangered black-faced spoonbills (黑-接鷺), which winter in the vicinity.

In addition, the developers said several controversial environmental issues, including the project's possible impact on the ecological system, the loss of lagoons and soil liquefaction, had been studied comprehensively and no problems had been found.

Environmentalists differed, however, saying the area's coastal ecology would be destroyed once the Chiku lagoon (?C股溼|a) is transformed into an industrial park.

By then, they said, all the endangered black-faced spoonbills, which now reportedly number less than 600 globally, would be gravely endangered for lack of wintering sites.

Environmental activists said at the meeting that the Pinnan project should be cancelled immediately because the Chiku lagoon has been classified by Bird Life International, an organization that has worked in cooperation with the Council of Agriculture (COA 1A委會), in March as one of 52 "important bird areas" in Taiwan.

EPA officials decided yesterday to allow experts to investigate the proposed field at the southern site again, to study the possible impact on the ecology of the Chiku lagoon near the Tsengwen River Estuary (曾?撌?f).

Environmentalists have been working to persuade the EPA to prohibit the use of the lagoon for industrial development since 1993, when the Tuntex Group and Yieh-loong Co first proposed building the industrial complex, which is to include a petrochemical plant and a steel-making facility.

Legislators opposed to the project said at the meeting yesterday that the report provided by the developers was "tricky" to evaluate.

"We see obvious faults in the EIA process. It's very hard to convince us that the report is true, because the environmental engineering consultant was hired by the developers," said Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智), DPP legislator from Tainan County.

"I would lose faith in the government if the Pinnan project -- reflecting the contradictory policies of this country -- is approved," Su said.

Su said that in any case, high water-demand industries should not be encouraged in their development, since Taiwan is plagued by a chronic lack of water resources.

Other officials, including the county commissioner, claimed they had a different perspective.

"Development does hurt the environment. But as a commissioner, I cannot look at this matter only from the angle of environmental protection," Chen Tang-shan (3??s), Tainan County Commissioner and a member of the DPP, said.

Chou Wu-liu (周?-??/CHINESE>), a KMT legislator from Tainan County, agreed. "Local residents will have no future if we don't support the project," he said. "They cannot live by operating aquaculture or in-shore fisheries. I would like to see our poor children get jobs in factories in this industrial complex. This is the only way out."