The Environmental Protection Administration’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) committee yesterday failed to reach a conclusion on a proposed Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co (國光石化) naphtha cracker complex despite a marathon nine-hour discussion.
The committee will meet again today on whether to greenlight the complex being built in a wetland area in Changhua County.
At the last committee meeting on Jan. 28, Kuokuang was told it had to submit additional information about the project, which had been scaled back from its original proposal.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Yesterday’s meeting began with Kuokuang’s report about the possible impact of the reduced project — which would be constructed on a man-made island — on air pollution, health risks, changes to coastal geography, the endangered Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins and the area’s water supply.
The report concluded that the air pollution produced by the complex would be within regulation limits, the energy consumed could be reduced and that the plants that pose a higher health risk would be located further from land. The report said the plant would not extract groundwater, so it would not affect land subsidence, while protection of dolphins could be improved by setting up a foundation.
The report said the total economic benefits of the project could reach NT$286.2 billion (US$9.86 billion), larger than the external cost of NT$21.8 billion to NT$32.7 billion, and could provide more job opportunities.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
However, Lin Lien-tsung (林連宗), a resident of Changhua’s Fangyuan Township (芳苑), asked where the water supply would come from if a proposed diversion weir did not pass its own EIA.
Hsu Li-yi (許立儀), a resident of Dacheng Township (大城), said her family has lived in the area for generations, but she did not want her children to grow up on polluted land between two petrochemical sites in Yulin and Changhua counties.
Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲), a National Chung Hsing University professor, said the company overestimated the plant’s benefits in its report. A recalculation of the possible health risks and medical costs would make the costs outweigh the benefits, Chen said.
The director of Yunlin County Government’s Economic Affairs Department, Huang Chiung-ya (黃瓊雅), said the petrochemical complex built by Formosa Plastics Group in Mailiao Township (麥寮) had severely polluted the environment, raising the risk of cancer for area residents and causing three accidents in the past two years.
Huang, representing Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬), urged the committee members to consider their professional expertise and their conscience, and reject Kuokuang’s application to prevent the same kind of tragedy happening in Changhua.
Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權), a National Taiwan University professor, said that if members of the EIA panel were to use “environmental protection” as the professional standard in reviewing the case, then Kuokang’s application should be rejected because there is enough evidence that the plant would clearly impact the environment, society and residents’ health.
Approving the project would be a mistake and a violation of environmental justice, he said.
Meanwhile, outside the EPA’s headquarters, hundreds of Changhua County residents and students from universities nationwide, protested against the proposed plant’s negative impact on the environment and residents.
They said they hoped the panel would reject the project.
The students held mockups of newspapers bearing headlines proclaiming that the Kuokuang project had been canceled.
The mockups, dated April 22, had mastheads reading “United Oyster News” and “Oyster Times,” and were designed to show support for oyster farmers in Changhua whose livelihood is expected to be affected should the project be built.
“We cannot accept that the project will be approved, even conditionally, because the external costs are too high to be absorbed by the environment,” said Tsai Pei-hui (蔡培慧), a teacher at Shih Hsin University and the organizer of the mock newspapers..
At a separate setting, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers also called on the government to drop the project, citing environmental and health concerns.
Construction of the facility would also run counter to the government’s pledge to reduce carbon emissions, they said.
The proposed site — a protected wetlands — was the “kidney of Taiwan,” DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said.
“The DPP caucus is resolutely opposed to building a petrochemical plant there,” he said.
The DPP’s presidential hopefuls have also unanimously expressed disapproval of the project.
Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said earlier this month that she hoped the facility could be built in or nearer to oil-producing regions in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia.
However, government agencies have sent mixed messages on the idea of building the plant overseas.
James Tien (田中光), director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, yesterday said that Malaysia and Indonesia were among a number of Southeast Asian countries that have expressed an interest in the Kuokuang project.
However, these countries have not submitted any substantial plans for hosting the project, Tien said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VINCENT Y. CHAO, SHIH HSIU-CHUAN AND CNA
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the