Environmentalists yesterday blasted the Taipei City Government’s decision to go ahead with the construction of the Beitou Gondola, accusing the government of placing political interests above public safety.
The activists accused Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of either tampering with figures to avoid an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the Beitou Gondola or having a poor knowledge of EIA regulations.
“The Beitou Gondola will have every problem that the Maokong one has — and many more,” said Lynn Lin (林子凌), secretary-general of the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association.
Despite mounting concerns over the Maokong Gondola’s safety, “the Taipei City Government has autocratically decided to go ahead with the Beitou project,” Lin said.
The city government is fully aware that the Beitou Gondola will be built on sensitive areas that are prone to landslides — from the foot of Yangmingshan to the top of the national park — as park authorities have highlighted the risks before, Lin said.
“This is placing political interests before people’s lives, [not to mention] a blatant waste of taxpayer’s money and damage to the environment,” she said.
Lin said this was a case of history repeating itself.
The city government commissioned the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in 2000 to 2002 to inspect the areas in Muzha (木柵) prior to the construction of the Maokong Gondola and received a report showing that not only was the area sensitive and prone to landslides, the Hsindian Fault runs through the area.
“However, the city still went ahead with the construction,” she said.
Green Party Taiwan Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲), who was also present at the press conference, said: “A wrong political decision is more severe than embezzlement, it poses an even larger risk to the public.”
Showing reporters a graph that ITRI had made, Lin said: “You don’t have to be an expert to know that this is dangerous.”
Lin also accused the city of dodging an EIA for the Beitou project like it did for Maokong, adding that Hau was a “co-conspirator in fraud.”
“EIA regulations state that development projects of more than 10 hectares have to go through an EIA, but in the proposal, the city states that the Beitou Gondola would cover only 9.5 hectares,” she said. “This is a case of document fraud, as according to EIA regulations, the development area should be calculated based on the area of the construction base.”
In the document the city tallied up the area of the construction base of three out of four stations, as well as the area where the cable would pass. However, it used the building area of the station at the foot of the mountain for calculations instead of the construction base area, she said, adding that this was a clear violation of the EIA law and evidence the city was trying to avoid an EIA.
“Whereas the construction base area is 3.9 hectares, the building is only 500m² ... The actual area of the Beitou project should then be well over 12 hectares,” she said.
“This document was sent to and approved by Hau, who was then the Environmental Protection Administration minister,” Lin said.
“If the project was truly 9.5 hectares, why should the city even bother informing the EPA? By approving it, Hau is either in on it with them, or not knowledgeable about EIA regulations,” she said.
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
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,
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