More than 1,000 people from Hsinchu and Taoyuan counties staged a demonstration outside the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) in Taipei yesterday, protesting the dumping of toxic wastewater by two LCD manufacturers into a river designated for irrigation and drinking, a practice that continued even after the two plants were told not to do so.
“We refuse to drink toxic wastewater! We want our clean Siaoli River (霄裡溪) back!” shouted angry residents from Sinpu Township (新埔) and Jhubei City (竹北) in Hsinchu County and Taoyun County’s Longtan Township (龍潭).
Although the source of the Siaoli River is in Longtan, only a few hundred meters of the upstream section of the river is in Taoyuan County, while most of the river flows through Sinpu and Jhubei before joining the larger Fengshan River (鳳山溪).
Photo: CNA
Siaoli River is classified as a “class A” river, and is designated for irrigation and potable water use for Hsinchu City and parts of Hsinchu County.
However, in November 2001, Taoyuan County issued permits to LCD manufacturers AU Optronics Corp (AUO) and Chunghwa Picture Tubes for their factories in Longtan to dump wastewater into the Siaoli River, instead of the Laojie River (老街溪), which is a “class C” river that is allowed to be used for the dumping of processed wastewater.
The two factories are located on a hill on the Taoyuan County side of the border between Taoyuan and Hsinchu counties. The hill is bordered by the Siaoli River, which flows into Hsinchu County, on one side, and the Laojie River, which flows deeper into Taoyuan County, on the other side.
“The decision by the Taoyuan County Government to allow wastewater to be dumped into a class A river instead of a class C river is totally illegal,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Peng Shao-chin (彭紹瑾) said at the demonstration.
The EPA’s environmental impact assessment meeting has made conclusions in 2002, 2007, 2009 and this year that the Taoyuan County Government should withdraw the permit for the two LCD manufacturers to dump wastewater into Siaoli River, while the Control Yuan has asked the Taoyuan County Government to correct the decision.
“The water from the LCD plants is polluted — it is high in phosphor, it is not good for irrigation and it is not good for drinking, but the water processing plant in Jhubei continues to get [polluted] water from the Siaoli River,” Longtan’s Sanhe Village (三和村) chief Hsieh Chin-chi (謝金棋) said. “About 200,000 people live on the water of the Siaoli River, and the problem has persisted for about 10 years. We want a solution right away.”
Minister of Environmental Protection Stephen Shen (沈世宏) initially declined to meet the protesters, prompting them to block the 10-lane Zhonghua Road in front of the EPA.
Protesters first blocked the outer lanes, but gradually walked onto inner lanes and bus lanes, forcing scooters, cars and buses to turn around, back up or change lanes.
Police officers on the scene tried to stop the protesters, but they were unable to do so because they were outnumbered.
Sheng eventually made an appearance and promised that the EPA would not allow the Taoyuan County Government to renew the two LCD manufacturers’ wastewater emissions permit for the Siaoli River once the permits expire in November.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400