Print

Mail

wiki links

EIA panel rejects CPC’s renewal plan for Linyuan cracker

The Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) environmental impact assessment (EIA) panel yesterday rejected CPC Corp, Taiwan’s (CPC) renewal plan for its third naphtha cracker in Kaohsiung County’s Linyuan Township (林園).

The decision means the CPC proposal will go back to a case committee review.

The EIA panel said if the company wished to move ahead with its NT$46 billion (US$1.4 billion) construction plan, it would need to go through the EIA process with a new case committee.

When construction proposals are filed to the EPA, they are first reviewed by a EIA case committee, which consists of around seven of the 21 EIA panel members, before they can go before the entire EIA panel.

Several local residents opposed to the naptha cracker project who were demonstrating in front of the EPA yesterday fell to their knees crying when they were told of the ruling, saying that the EIA panel had made an informed decision.

However, former Linyuan anti-naphtha cracker association chairman Wu Chi-hung (伍啟宏) said, “[The residents] are tired.”

“CPC will not leave us alone — this is the fourth time we have fought against them during case committee reviews,” Wu said.

“Though CPC calls it a ‘renewal plan,’ the proposal is actually to increase productivity of the plant four-fold — from 230,000 tons of polystyrene to up to 800,000,” he said.

At stake, Wu said, was the residents’ health.

“Those of you in the north should make a trip down south and see it for yourself — we are not living in an inhabitable area,” he said.

“The air smells awful, we have to buy drinking water and our cancer rate is four times the national average,” he said.

Wu said residents would “fight until the end” if the CPC refiles the case, adding: “We have lived with the plant next to our home for some 30 years, we are not throwing a temper tantrum, we are battling for the well-being of our neighborhood.”

Former EIA panelist Li Ken-cheng (李根政), who spoke against the expansion plan, said the panel listened to the local residents and made a professional and sensible decision.

However, Green Party Taiwan (GPT) secretary-general Pan Han-sheng (潘翰聲) said yesterday’s decision was “the second best option we would have chosen.”

“Anyone would agree this is a major construction case — and as such the case should enter the more elaborate and stringent second stage EIA review [which means more requirements need to be met], instead of kicking the case back and forth between the case committee and the panel,” he said.
This story has been viewed 963 times.