The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is neglecting pollution in Changhua County’s Dadu River Estuary Wildlife Refuge, lawmakers said yesterday.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) told a press conference that the 3 hectare refuge was one of the most important wetlands in Asia, but that it had been polluted, threatening the ecosystem and humans.
Huang said she had informed the EPA about the problem and was told it suspected that the pollution consists of coal ash and flue dust, fine particles of metal emitted by a smelter.
She said the EPA had shirked its responsibilities by blaming the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ River Management Office for the problem.
He Jiane-rin (何建仁), an EPA section chief, said the agency had used the word “suspected” because the official results of inspections had yet to be determined. However, he said it was confirmed yesterday that the refuge was polluted by toxic industrial waste, he added.
The agency would work with the River Management Office to clean up the waste, he said.
“We will also inspect the soil and groundwater,” He said. “If they are found to be contaminated, we will place the refuge under our supervision.”
Huang Huan-chang (黃煥彰), an associate professor at Chunghua University of Medical Technology’s department of nursing, said the dioxin in the soil was 2.5 times normal values.
“Pollutants in the earth spread through the water in the Dadu River as the tides ebb and flow,” Huang Huan-chang said. “Mudskippers, fiddler crab and oysters have to live in an environment filled with flue dust.”
Green Party Taiwan spokesperson Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) said the EPA and local environmental protection bureaus had failed to protect the environment, allowing poisonous substances into the food chain.
“Steel and electroplating plants are a cancer for the land in Taiwan,” he said. “Now the cancer cells have got out of hand and spread.”
“Like a failed immune system, the environmental bureaus didn’t do their job,” Pan said.
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