In a bid to implement a relocation plan that has been stuck for nearly two decades due to land acquisition problems, the Kaohsiung City Government yesterday launched a waste removal project in a spacious area which is slated to be the new home for more than 20,000 residents of Hungmaokang.
The problems began in 1973, when the Ministry of Transportation and Communications' Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau planned to develop a southwestern coastal area of the city into a commercial harbor.
The existence of the Hungmaokang community -- which sits in that coastal area -- became an obstacle not only to the plan but also to the long-term development of the harbor.
After years of delays, the final solution was to move the community to 170 hectares of abandoned land that sits on the border dividing the city and Kaohsiung county.
According to city officials, a 24-hectare waste dump on the site is the first obstacle to be tackled before residents can move in.
After spending more than one year evaluating the dump, environmental officials concluded that 660,000 cubic meters of waste piled up there included waste oil tanks, construction waste, iron and steel slag, toxic waste chemical solvents and hazardous copper-tainted sludge.
Yesterday morning, officials from both local governments jointly launched the operation of a waste-removal project at the site.
"The launch means that the Hungmaokang relocation plan has already entered a new era," said Kaohsiung Secretary General Chang Chun-yen (
As early as the 1980s, residents of Hungmaokang complained about the deteriorating environmental quality resulting from the operation of a thermal power plant, a sewage treatment and a wharf for coal transportation near their homes.
After spending years discussing compensation and related problems with about 20,000 residents belonging to more than 8,500 families, the city government first came up with a relocation plan in 1985 -- a plan that has since been revised three times. In 1998, the revised plan was eventually approved by the Executive Yuan.
The relocation plan, however, still exist only on paper due to local opposition driven by everything from the desire for cultural conservation to the demand for more compensation.
Officials said yesterday that the environment of Hungmaokang residents' new home would be very pleasant because of well-designed public constructions and comprehensive preparation work.
According to Chang Feng-teng (
In addition, Chang said, about 10,000 cubic metric soil at the site contaminated by waste oil would be handled carefully.
"Soil contaminated by waste oil will be separated and sent to incinerators," Chang said.
Toxic waste chemical solvents and hazardous copper-tainted sludge will be packed at the scene before being sent to waste handlers, Chang said.
According to the MOTC, the Executive Yuan is considering incorporating the NT$ 18.8 billion budget needed by the relocation project into the government's plans for a three-year NT$300 billion public-works program.
Huang Ching-tern (
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,