Facing criticism from lawmakers regarding a failure to investigate land contaminated with steel furnace slag and foundry ash in Kaohsiung County, officials from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday promised to work closely with local agencies to conduct a thorough nationwide inspection and improve existing operating procedures.
EPA deputy minister Chang Tzi-chin (張子敬) said the administration would do its utmost to ensure cases such as the Daliao duck farm incident did not happen again.
On Nov. 6, the Council of Agriculture (COA) and the EPA ordered a mass culling of more than 9,000 ducks at a farm in Daliao Township (大寮), Kaohsiung County, after investigators found the land was contaminated with large amounts of furnace slag and foundry ash. The ducks were later found to contain high levels of toxic substances.
Environmental groups said the duck farm had been operating for more than three years and contaminated duck meat had reached the marketplace.
In a legislative hearing about the incident, lawmakers across party lines strongly criticized the EPA for delaying the investigation, not actively investigating other cases of possible contamination and consequently putting public health at risk.
Environmental organizations led by Huang Huan-chang (黃煥彰), an associate professor at Chung Hwa University of Medical Technology, told reporters that the EPA was first alerted on July 22 this year. The EPA confirmed this, but said that original plans to investigate at the beginning of August were delayed by the typhoon.
“How can [Typhoon Morakot] be an excuse for delaying the investigation a full three months,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Chi-yu (陳啟昱) said.
Chen, whose electoral district includes the contaminated duck farm, accused the EPA of only acting after media reports started circulating.
“My district has long been a target for illegal dumping … the EPA took an interest in the matter only after the media started reporting on it,” Chen said.
Faced with Chang’s response that the EPA was waiting on the Kaohsiung County Environmental Bureau before it could act, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hwang Yih-jiau (黃義交) said the EPA should have taken a more active approach instead of “sitting back and shirking its responsibilities.”
He advised the EPA to set up a system to ensure complaints received at the local level were also passed on to the agency. That would ensure the EPA could take swift action in cases where local government agencies’ resources were overwhelmed.
Questions were also raised by DPP Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) over the possible contamination of other land surrounding both lawful and unlawful dumping sites in the event of a flood or other natural disasters.
She said the EPA must develop a backup plan in the event of another disaster such as Typhoon Morakot.
In response to the complaints and suggestions raised by lawmakers, Chang promised that the EPA would develop a comprehensive plan to resolve the problem of land contamination. He also said the EPA would crack down on trucking companies engaged in illegal dumping.
The EPA subsequently said it would conduct a thorough investigation of all illegal dumping sites, work together with the Ministry of Economic Affairs to improve furnace slag recycling, build new foundry ash processing plants and revising and update relevant laws in conjunction with the legislature.
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