Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-feng (蘇治芬) and a group of Mailiao Township (麥寮) residents yesterday appealed to Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and the government to listen to their complaints about pollution from a naphtha cracker in their town.
Braving the scorching sun, the protesters knelt in front of the Executive Yuan during their protest. They also threw dead fish and clams that had been found days after a fire broke out in a residual desulphurizer at Formosa Petrochemical Corp’s petrochemical complex on Sunday night.
On July 7, the company had also shut a naphtha cracker after a fire at the complex.
PHOTO PROVIDED COURTESY OF YUNLIN COUNTY GOVERNMENT
“This was what the water looked like in our fish farm,” said one protester as he held a bottle of black water in his hands.
The protesters said they had turned to the Executive Yuan for help because they had not had a response from the government to their request that the environmental impact assessment on the plant’s fifth stage expansion be stopped.
However, Wu did not appear. Liao Yaw-chung (廖耀宗), chief of the Executive Yuan’s fifth section — the unit that deals mainly with economic policy — received the protesters and said he would relay their appeal to the premier.
While Wu did not meet the group led by the Democratic Progressive Party’s Su, he did meet for half an hour on Wednesday with a group of Mailiao residents led by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡).
Before heading to the Executive Yuan, Su’s group attended a public hearing held by DPP lawmakers Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) and Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國) on the two fires.
Su said the premier should visit Yunlin County to gain a better understanding of the safety issues surrounding the naphtha cracker.
Pollution from the recent fires seriously damaged the agricultural and fisheries industries in the area and exposed Yunlin residents to seven times the level of pollution in other parts of the country, Su said.
She was also unhappy the Executive Yuan only sent low-ranking officials to the hearing.
“I was once a lawmaker. I know public hearings do little to resolve problems. It was such a humble request to have officials come and listen to us. However, what we learned at the public hearing was that the Executive Yuan will continue to review the expansion plan,” Su said, referring to remarks made by Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Hwang Jung-chiou (黃重球) yesterday morning.
Hwang told a press conference following the weekly Cabinet meeting that the recent fires would not interfere with the environmental impact assessment process.
“We were of the opinion that the environmental impact assessment should be delinked from the accidents,” Hwang said in response to a question.
“Maybe the members of the Environmental Protection Administration’s Environmental Impact Assessment Commission will demand that Formosa Plastics meet more requirements because of the accidents,” Hwang said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
RSS