Legislators join incinerator fray

Residents of Meinung township (美濃) in Kaohsiung County have stepped up protests against a local waste incinerator plant they believe is operating illegally, and called for permanent closure of the facility.

On Thursday evening, more than 100 Meinung residents and anti-incinerator activists attended a public hearing called by DPP legislators Hsu Chih-ming (徐志明) and Liu Chun-hsiung (劉俊雄), demanding an end to operation of the waste incinerator run by Sunny Friend Environmental Technology Co Ltd (日友公司).

Hsu said that he would lead Meinung residents to protest in front of the Presidential Office if the local government failed to address the problem.

Controversy over the incinerator was sparked early this year after Meinung residents heard rumors that the facility was operating illegally.

An operator at the plant revealed that the incinerator sometimes burned waste at a temperature lower than was safe to do so.

In addition, residents said they believed hazardous industrial and medical waste had been transported to the plant in secret. The incinerator is only permitted to burn 110 tonnes of household waste daily.

After carrying out what they said was a long-term investigation, the anti-incinerator activists in Meinung claimed the procedure by which the government issued operating permits to the plant was questionable.

Local residents then filed a lawsuit in August and the case has since been taken over by Kaohsiung County district prosecutors. Last month, prosecutors interrogated several county government officials suspected of corruption linked to the incinerator. All were subsequently released on bail.

Investigations are now focusing on the process by which the plant's operating permit (操作許可) and construction license (建築執照) were issued by the local government.

Prosecutors said that one of the key points in question was that the waste incinerator was built in an area that previously was a buffer zone for the Laonung River (荖濃溪) -- an area where construction was prohibited.

Residents previously accused the Taiwan Provincial Government, before it was downsized, of arbitrarily narrowing the buffer zone along the river in 1998 to allow the incinerator to be built there.

Hsiao Chu-liang (蕭祝良), an anti-incinerator activist attending the public hearing on Thursday, told the Taipei Times yesterday that the government needs to make more of an effort to police environmental policy.

"The government, by allowing an incinerator to be built in a river buffer zone, has neglected the safety of millions living in the Kaohsiung metropolitan area downstream who rely on the river as a source of drinking water," Hsiao said.

During the hearing, local farmers played a videotape which documented what they said was "unusual crop damage" linked to the incinerator. Furthermore, the area affected by the damage is widening, they said.

One local resident, a mother, said that her child began suffering from asthma and a skin disease after the plant began to burn waste in September 1999.

She said that her child was only one of many in the area who suffered similar symptoms.

Due to strong local opposition, the plant has stopped accepting hazardous industrial waste for processing. Meinung residents, however, remain dissatisfied -- and say they will campaign until the plant is closed down permanently.