Both lawmakers and residents of Kungliao township, Taipei County, yesterday demanded an independent task force be created to review Taiwan Power Company's (Tai-power's) lapses in supervising construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
Their demands were prompted by the recent exposure of construction defects in a reactor pedestal for the plant. Inferior welding materials were secretly used for the second to the fifth layers of the pedestal. According to the Atomic Energy Council, about 52 percent of materials were replaced by less pressure-resistant ones.
At a press conference at the Legislative Yuan, lawmakers from across the political spectrum stressed the need for an independent task force to look into details of Taipower's awarding of contracts.
The task force, lawmakers said, should include residents of Kungliao -- where the reactor is being built -- lawmakers, environmental groups and others.
Eugene Jao (
"Each of Taipower's contractors has its own subcontractors, making it impossible for Taipower to supervise each part of the construction," Jao said.
Taipower has had difficulties in providing lawmakers with a list of subcontractors and details of its mechanism of supervision, according to Jao.
PFP Legislator Lee Hung-chun (
"The intentional use of inferior welding materials in the pedestal's construction implies that Taipower's mechanism of construction supervision was questionable," Lee said.
DPP lawmakers Chiu Chuang-chin (
Anti-nuclear residents of Kungliao said that they had reported construction defects several times but received no response.
Activists with the Kungliao-based Yenliao Anti-Nuclear Self-Help Association said yesterday that in 2000 they reported to the Environmental Protection Administration that construction waste was dumped illegally into the sea.
The waste was from a site for a wharf, where heavy machines would be transferred.
"Moreover, when we snuck into the construction site to photograph the inferior materials being used, no supervisor was there," association spokesman Wu Wen-tung (
Wu said that the case was reported to Taipower but they received no response.
Saying that the government has ignored the voices of Kungliao residents for two decades, Wu sobbed at yesterday's press conference when he recalled the passing of anti-nuclear activist Chen Ching-tang (陳慶塘).
Chen, who helped pioneer the anti-nuclear movement, died last month at the age of 70 still worried about the plant's threats to Taiwanese people, Wu said.
Lawmakers said President Chen Shui-bian (
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS