Asia Cement Corp (亞泥) yesterday denied that it has been expanding mining operations in Hualien County.
“We have been conducting a large-scale afforestation project in the region for several years and the efforts have begun to bear fruit,” the company, one of the biggest cement makers in the nation, said in a statement.
The comments came after the death on Saturday of documentary filmmaker Chi Po-lin (齊柏林) in a helicopter crash, which raised public questions about the scope of the firm’s mining operations in Hualien because of his footage.
Asia Cement has been mining in eastern Taiwan for 60 years. Its mine once extended 25 hectares into Taroko National Park, but it said it reduced its mining area in the park at the end of last year.
Asia Cement is a unit of Far Eastern Group (遠東集團), which also operates Far Eastern Department Stores Co (遠東百貨) and textile maker Far Eastern New Century Corp (遠東新世紀).
The Ministry of Economic Affairs in March approved an extension of Asia Cement’s mining rights in Sincheng Township (新城) by 20 years, allowing it to bypass an environmental impact assessment.
“The ministry has completed the draft amendment to the Mining Act (礦業法) and would require outdated projects to pass environmental impact assessments in the future,” Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said yesterday.
The ministry is to discuss related details with the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), Shen said, without providing a timetable.
The Department of Mines said in a statement that the nation’s cement supply chains might be affected if Asia Cement halts production at its Hualien plant.
The Hualien plant contributes nearly 29 percent of Taiwan’s total cement production, it said.
In late March, Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan, initiated a petition to abolish the extension of mining rights, which collected about 42,000 signatures until the first week of this month.
After Chi’s lastest aerial photograph of the company’s activity was revealed on Saturday, about 40,000 signatures were added to the petition over the weekend, bringing the total number of signatures to 87,867 as of 8:30pm last night, foundation researcher Pan Cheng-cheng (潘正正) said.
Once the petition has 100,000 signatures, the foundation will deliver it to authorities and press them to re-examine the company’s mining permit, Pan said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) said on Facebook yesterday that the EPA should ask the company to conduct a new environmental impact analysis and submit response strategies, based on Article 28 of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法).
Pan said a new analysis might change the firm’s mining scope, but added that “it would be a difficult decision for the EPA.”
The EPA had not responded to Lin’s call as of press time last night.
Additional reporting by Ines Lin
REACHING OUT: President Tsai expressed condolences to the deceased man’s family and wished a speedy recovery to those who were wounded in the shooting The Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) on Monday called on the US to label organizations associated with the suspect in the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church shooting as domestic terrorists, following accusations that he was a member of a group backing unification with ties to the Chinese government. David Wenwei Chou (周文偉), 68, was arrested on Sunday and is being held in lieu of US$1 million bail at the Orange County Intake Release Center over a mass shooting at the California church that left one dead and five wounded. Local police suspect the shooting was politically motivated after they found notes in
LIVING WITH COVID-19: Close contacts with a booster shot would no longer follow the ‘3+4’ policy, instead practicing ‘0+7,’ or self-disease prevention for seven days Close contacts of COVID-19 cases who have received a booster shot no longer need to isolate at home, but should practice seven days of “self-disease prevention,” effective today, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that starting at 12am today, close contacts — people living in the same household — of those confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 are exempt from home isolation if they have received a booster shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. Data from other countries show that people who have received a booster shot are
‘TOO RESTRICTIVE’: Ending US sales of weapons that do not fall under the category of ‘asymmetric’ would hamper Taiwan’s defense against China, two business groups said Taiwan’s weapons procurement decisions are made based on its needs, and are not influenced by individual arms dealers, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday after two US business groups questioned a US official’s comment on arms sales to Taiwan. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Regional Security Mira Resnick told the business groups via video link on Saturday that Washington would adjust the types of weapons sold to Taiwan and end “most arms sales to Taiwan that do not fall under the category of ‘asymmetric.’” The American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan and the US-Taiwan Business Council on Monday
MANY VOICES: The Formosa Club, 94 Mexican lawmakers, 70 Brazilian lawmakers and others signed a letter recommending Taiwan’s inclusion to the WHO director-general A WHO official on Monday said the organization would begin discussing a motion to restore Taiwan’s observer status in six days’ time, after confirming the receipt of a request from 13 member states to deliberate the matter. Steven Solomon, the WHO principal legal officer, made the comment at a news briefing ahead of the 75th meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the organization’s decisionmaking body in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHA Executive Board would meet in a closed-door session on Sunday evening to advise the member states, which would then meet the next day to determine whether the motion would be entered