Nuclear activists seek new EIA

While the incoming government considers the pros and cons of whether to build or scrap the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, anti-nuclear environmentalists are continuing with a scheme aimed at halting the project through legal means.

They plan to urge the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to conduct a fresh environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the plant -- a response to recent comments by officials from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), to the effect that they cannot legally halt construction work.

"It's time for the new government to review the previous -- and controversial -- EIA," Lai Wei-chieh (賴偉傑), head of the Green Citizens Action Alliance (綠色公民行動聯盟), told the Taipei Times yesterday.

"If the new government cannot deal with controversial cases such as this, that what can we expect from our government?" Lai said, adding that problems left by several other similar development projects were also awaiting solutions.

The idea of conducting a new EIA for the plant has been prominent in conversationalist circles since Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) won the presidential election.

For anti-nuclear activists, the appointment of Lin Jun-yi (林俊義) as the new head of the EPA was a major step toward that goal.

"We will urge Lin, who has been our comrade for years, to conduct a new EIA on the construction," Hsu Kuang-jung (徐光蓉), vice chairperson of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU), told the Taipei Times.

Hsu said that the planned power output of the plant had been changed by Taiwan Power Corp (Taipower, 台電) from 1000MW to 1350 MW, without first processing a new EIA.

Hsu said that this violated the EIA Act (環境影響評估法).

According to that law, the content of the approved EIA report cannot be revised without the authorization of the EPA and the Atomic Energy Council (AEC). In addition, she said, such authorization should be based on a new EIA.

The original EIA for the nuclear power plant was approved conditionally by Taipower's supervisor, the AEC, in 1991. At the time, anti-nuclear activists angrily protested against its approval.

When the EIA Act was put into effect on Dec. 30, 1994, environmentalists began highlighting what they called questionable decisions made by Taipower in a bid to call for a new, comprehensive EIA to be conducted by the EPA.

Taipower's changes to the plant's generating power without a new EIA culminated with a censure from the Control Yuan in 1995 to seven administrative units, including the Executive Yuan, MOEA and the AEC.

However, the construction of the plant continued under the support of KMT-run central government.

In 1999, when the AEC issued the construction license for the plant, environmentalists again began to demonstrate.

Two Control Yuan members, Ma Yi-kung (馬以工) and Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄), started a comprehensive investigation of the project and focused on its EIA procedures. They also censured the AEC for the changes in the power generation capacity, as well as for failing to properly manage the issue of nuclear waste.

Recently, environmentalists argued that the EPA should have asked for a completed halt, similar to a recent case involving chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (聯電, UMC).

As next Saturday's massive anti-nuclear demonstration (五一三反核大遊行) nears, anti-nuclear activists said that the event is a prelude to the next wave of the anti-nuclear movement in Taiwan.