A huge fire that broke out at the Formosa Plastics Group-owned Naphtha Cracker plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) appears to have left a burning aftertaste for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which said yesterday it would not likely support further expansion for the industry if it were to regain power in 2012.
Production was partly halted at the 1,680 hectare complex after a fire broke out at a pollution treatment facility on Sunday night. Experts believe the fire, which sent heavy plumes of black smoke into the sky, will likely exacerbate health problems for local residents who are already said to be suffering from a noticeable increase in cancer-like symptoms over the past few years.
Traveling to the area yesterday morning, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said the incident highlighted problems with the country’s continued dependence on the high-polluting petrochemical industry, adding that the government should take a second look at plans to expand the complex.
She met with farmers, who took her to see mounds of blackened earth that they said was once fertile soil, but had since been contaminated by the facility’s dangerous chemicals, which polluted the atmosphere following the heavy fire.
DPP spokesperson Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said the party recognized that Taiwan’s economic development should no longer depend on expansion of the petrochemical industry.
“We will not interfere with [plants that are] already operating ... but the DPP will not develop this industry further if we regain power,” he said.
As an alternative, he said Taiwan should make new inroads into the renewable energy sector, calling it the next step for a country that is severely limited in natural resources and arable land.
The remarks signal a change of position for the DPP, as it previously supported the construction of another petrochemical plant.
Acknowledging this shift, Tsai Ing-wen said: “It shows that the DPP is a political party capable of reflection. All we are doing is returning to the roots of our party — putting environmental protection and living standards first.”
In 2005, the then-DPP administration pushed for construction of another Naphtha Cracker plant that would be located in Changhua County. The NT$400 billion (US$12.5 billion) proposal is pending approval from an environmental impact assessment.
If approved, the complex will likely create up to 5,000 jobs in the region, but environmental scientists have said that the complex could cause an increase in health problems among area residents.
Worrying signs of the industry’s environmental impact have caused alarm among county commissioners. Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chi-fen (蘇治芬) of the DPP traveled to Taipei City yesterday to meet with DPP officials, asking for their support to block future construction proposals.
At a separate setting yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) proposed amending the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) to oblige polluting enterprises to give 20 percent of their income tax and 30 percent of their commodity tax directly to cities and counties where their factories are located.
Joined by village chiefs from Mailiao Township at a KMT caucus press conference after meeting Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) earlier yesterday, Chang said petrochemical plants did not necessarily bring economic prosperity to local residents, but often caused pollution.
Chang said giving part of the enterprises’ income and commodity taxes directly to local governments could help make operation of the companies more acceptable to the people.
Chang, elected in Yunlin, also demanded that the central government establish an emergency response center at Mailiao to help residents evacuate “should any accidents occur.”
Mailiao Township chief Lin Sung-li (林松利) urged the company to propose plans to compensate township farmers. He also called on the central government to send “credible environmental protection groups” to monitor and investigate the water and air quality of the township.
Also See: Formosa may need two weeks to restart
OVERHAUL NEEDED: The government should improve its agricultural processing capabilities and expand to new markets to limit its reliance on China, an expert said China’s ban on Taiwanese pineapples was “unsurprising,” and Taiwan should have years ago altered its produce export strategies and target customers, experts said. China on Friday abruptly suspended imports of pineapples from Taiwan, saying that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful biological entities” on the fruit. Calling it an “unfriendly” move, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said that 99.79 percent of the pineapples sent to China since last year have met China’s import standards. Chiao Chun (焦鈞), the author of Fruits and Politics — A Recollection of Cross-strait Agricultural Interaction Over the Past Decade (水果政治學:兩岸農業交流十年回顧與展望), said that China’s announcement is clearly targeting
The Council of Agriculture yesterday signed a Taiwan-Australia Agricultural Cooperation Implementation clause to open a new export market for the nation’s pineapple crop. The clause is an addition to existing cooperation measures, it said. China on Friday last week abruptly announced that it would suspend pineapple imports from Taiwan starting on Monday, on grounds that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful organisms” in shipments of the fruit. The public and private sectors have since joined hands to purchase the local fruit to help the nation’s pineapple farmers. Canberra has requested that all pineapples for export to Australia have their crown buds removed,
DECADES OF INFLUENCE: Over the past 20 years, China has made inroads with Aborigines, funding political campaigns and trips, a legislator said Lawmakers have called on the National Security Bureau to investigate claims of pervasive Chinese influence among Aboriginal communities. Legislators pointed to a surge in communist propaganda and Chinese-funded projects over the past few years, which they say are aimed at infiltrating and buying political influence among Aboriginal communities. “China has for decades carried out wide-ranging ‘united front’ tactics and propaganda campaigns targeting Aborigines,” said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ying (陳瑩), a member of the Puyuma community in Taitung County. “Now, they are influencing elections for local councilors and village chiefs, offering money for candidates to mount their campaigns, and to
DISSATISFACTION? If the referendums collect more than 700,000 signatures each, they would have gotten the most signatures in the shortest time, the party said The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) two referendum petitions — one on banning the importation of pork with traces of ractopamine and the other on holding referendums on the same day as national elections — had as of Thursday gathered 691,398 and 674,497 signatures respectively, the party said yesterday. If the petitions collect more than 700,000 signatures apiece, they would have garnered the most signatures in the shortest time since the Referendum Act (公民投票法) was amended in 2017, party officials said. The KMT proposed the “anti-ractopamine pork” or “food safety” referendum just days after President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) announcement on Aug. 28 last