Residents urge scrapping of incinerator

Activists urged the government yesterday to decommission the Meinung Waste Incinerator on both environmental and legal grounds.

The activists, residents of Meinung township (美濃鎮), Kaoshiung County, made their demands at a press conference held by environmental groups in Meinung yesterday. They said the incinerator should already have been closed on environmental grounds.

They said the location of the plant was inappropriate because the Taiwan Provincial Government in 1998, a year before it was downsized, had narrowed a required buffer zone along the Laonung River (荖濃溪) to allow the plant to be built within an area where construction was banned.

They said that contaminated water in the river flowed into the Kaoping River (高屏溪), one of the main rivers in southern Taiwan, and that millions of residents living in both Kaohsiung and Pingtung Counties could be affected.

"In addition to environmental issues, we urge the government to abandon the plant on legal grounds. There is too much illegality connected with the incinerator," said Lee Kung-lung (李永龍), of the Meinung Environmental Protection Union (美濃環保聯盟).

Activists urged the Kaohsiung County Government yesterday to terminate the contract with the operator, Sunny Friend Technology Co Ltd (日友公司), a Yunlin County-based waste handler.

Activists said now was a good time to abandon the plant because prosecutors suspect illegality on the part of officials involved.

Kaohsiung prosecutors on Oct. 6 started an investigation into the issuance of licenses for the incinerator, carrying out searches in 12 locations, including the Kaohsiung County Government, Sunny Friend's headquarters in Yunlin and its branch office in Meinung.

On Oct. 9, prosecutors ordered excavation at a landfill in Yianchao (燕巢) township, Kaohsiung County, suspecting that hazardous waste had been transferred there illegally from Meinung incinerator.

Activists said the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) should announce the results of tests on sampled waste from the Yianchao landfill soon.

They said the EPA and the Department of Health should also take into account the potential threats to human health to prevent further pollution.

Local media reports have said prosecutors had concerns about how Sunny Friend reached an agreement with the local authority to build the incinerator, capable of handling 110 tonnes of waste a day.

According to the EPA, two large-scale public incinerators in Kaohsiung County, Jenwu (仁武) Incinerator and Kangshan (岡山) Incinerator, can treat 2,700 tonnes of waste a day. Statistics show that the daily amount of waste generated within the county is about 1,400 tonnes.

Facing a shortage of household waste to burn, Sunny Friend filed an application in March for a license to burn industrial waste in addition to the household waste of Meinung township -- totalling a mere 40 tonnes a day on average -- for which it was already contracted and licensed.

The license was granted.

Local residents have protested against the incinerator since last year for what they said were "illegal" administrative procedures behind its establishment."