A Kaohsiung prosecutor yesterday ordered the excavation of a landfill in Yianchao (
At the excavation scene, prosecutor Yeh Ching-tsai (
Incinerators generate fly ash and bottom ash. Of the two, bottom ash is less toxic and is allowed in the Yianchao landfill. Fly ash is not.
Yeh said fly ash was smuggled into the landfill with bottom ash.
"According to the records of Yianchao township office, the total amount of residue [both fly ash and bottom ash] from the Meinung incinerator in June and July was more than 1,200 tonnes. Considering the usual 2:1 ratio of fly ash to bottom ash, the amount of fly ash may be more than 800 tonnes," Yeh said.
The excavation took all day yesterday. Prosecutor Yeh said not much had been dug out but samples collected at the scene would undergo laboratory examination.
The prosecutor said unburned waste mixed with ash residue had been found in the landfill.
The Meinung incinerator is run by the Sunny Friend Environmental Technology Co Ltd (
Prosecutors last Friday searched the Yunlin County-based waste handler, its branches, the incinerator plant and several Kaohsiung local government departments, following a lawsuit by Meinung local residents in August alleging that the incinerator's construction and operation was illegal.
Prosecutor Yeh said the investigation of the case was focusing on corruption by public officials.
Prosecutors have received numerous complaints from Meinung residents that the incinerator burned hazardous materials like medical waste. The plant was licensed to burn only household and non-hazardous industrial waste.
Meinung residents complained that the operators did not apply for a construction license for the incinerator until last December, and that testing had begun last September.
Residents also made an accusation to prosecutors that the local government had narrowed the required buffer zone along a river in 1998, allowing the incinerator to be built within an area where such construction had previously been banned.
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