Environmentalists yesterday sued Taiwan Cement Corp for illegally discharging waste oil in Hualien, while urging the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to release a report on soil samples taken at the company's factory.
Before handing in their evidence to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office, environmentalists and sympathetic lawmakers condemned what they called the EPA's lax management of hazardous industrial waste.
Chung Pao-chu (
The prosecutors were said to have discovered that bomb shelters built during the Japanese occupation prior to 1945 were full of oily sludge.
Prosecutors suspected that the company had illegally discharged waste into the shelters at some time in the last three or four years.
Management attributed the action to some former employees.
Although prosecutors transferred samples of polluted soil to the EPA's National Institute of Environmental Analysis, a report had not been completed.
The Hualien branch's contracted waste handler, Ta-Ho Environmental and Technical Services Co, was listed as one of the defendants in the lawsuit.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Eugene Jao (趙永清) and Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) said the case should be carefully investigated by both the EPA and the Council of Labor Affairs to uphold standards of environmental protection and occupational safety.
"The occupational safety of workers at the site deserves more attention," Jao said.
In response, EPA officials said the primary analysis of the soil samples from the site showed that the waste was diesel oil.
According to Andy Shen (沈一夫), executive secretary of the EPA's Soil And Groundwater Pollution Remediation Fund Management Committee, diesel oil can be disposed of by burning.
"We don't quite know why the Taiwan Cement Corp stored diesel waste underground. That might pollute the soil," he said.
Shen said the Hualien County Government had demanded the company develop a plan to dispose of the pollutants.
He said the possibility of groundwater pollution resulting from the dumping had been ruled out because of the distance between where the pollutants were found and the groundwater layers in the area.
However, Shen said, it remained to be seen if carcinogens were contained in the sludge found at the site.
Green Formosa Front chairman Wu Tung-jye (
"Eastern Taiwan is no longer a pristine place. This case, involving the illegal dumping of hazardous industrial waste, suggests that public health may have been jeopardized by any number of similar cases," Wu said.
Wu said the ISO 14001 Environmental Certification received by Taiwan Cement Cooperation was barely credible in light of the incident.
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