On the eve of Earth Day yesterday, legislators and environmentalists urged the Environmental Protec-tion Administration (EPA) to put off making an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the controversial Pinnan Industrial Complex (濱南工業區) project and allow the area to remain in its natural state.
The Pinnan project has been criticized for its potentially negative impact on the coastal ecology of the Chiku Wetland (七股溼地) near the Tsengwen River estuary in Tainan County, a major winter nesting ground for the endangered black-faced spoonbill (黑面琵鷺).
A group of legislators called for the postponement of the project yesterday at a press conference. They said that the incoming government should reassess the project. Conducting an environmental impact assessment on the site was improper, they said.
"The continuing impact assessments for the Pinnan project should stop immediately because the KMT government violated the law in carrying out the study," said legislator and independent vice-presidential candidate Josephine Chu (
Chu said that the KMT connived with developers to use coastal land, although existing laws forbid privatization of such areas.
In addition, Chu said, the Control Yuan raised doubts about the first stage of the project's environmental assessment in January.
"The EPA should not hold its meeting next week since the Control Yuan has already declared that the assessment should stop immediately," Chu said.
Legislators also said that incoming Cabinet members should express their views on the controversial EIA meeting right now, and not wait until the presidential inauguration on May 20.
"We plan to visit some of the new officials to ask them to come forward with their opposition to the Pinnan project by next Wednesday. We hope to force the EPA to give up the idea of continuing with the EIA," said KMT legislator Jao Yung-ching (
Responding to accusations from legislators, EPA officials told the Taipei Times that the scheduled EIA meeting for the project would still be held next week because administrative affairs should not be affected by political matters.
"We just do our business according to the law. We have to complete the whole EIA within a certain period of time set out according to regulations," said Ni Shih-piao (
Environmental scientists attending the press conference yesterday said that it was time for the government to reconsider the relationship between Taiwan's economic development and the preservation of its ecological heritage.
"At Chiku, a well-planned ecotourism business might be a better solution to the problem," said John Liu (劉可強), a professor from the Building and Planning Research Foundation at National Taiwan University.
Scientists also pointed out apparent defects in the project.
"The EIA should not go forward because no one has yet been able to guarantee how the 190,000 tonnes of water per day that is needed to supply the facility will be treated after it is used, or where it will come from, for that matter," said Sue Lin (林素貞), an environmental engineering professor at Tainan's National Cheng Kung University.
She said that the Water Resource Bureau has said that the currently available water supply stands at only 80,000 tonnes a day.
Lin also said that the establishment of the planned industrial complex would cause serious carbon dioxide emission problems.
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