Environmentalists and legislators yesterday exposed another case of an illegal landfill in farmland that was found to have been filled with recycled bottom ash from incinerators, sparking concerns that nearby farmls may have been polluted with toxic heavy metals.
Chung Hwa University of Medical Technology associate professor Huang Huan-chang (黃煥彰) told a press conference that the farmland in Greater Taichung’s Longjing District (龍井) was found to be filled with more than 20,000 tonnes of bottom ash, which test results showed to contain toxic heavy metals, including copper, nickel and zinc, that exceeded safe levels under the Soil Pollution Control Standards (土壤污染管制標準).
In September, environmentalists and residents from Greater Kao-hsiung exposed a case in which a parking lot made from more than 10,000 tonnes of recycled bottom ash from incinerators was found to have been built on a piece of farmland in the area’s Cingshuei District (清水), causing the nearby groundwater to be contaminated by lead.
Taiwan Academy of Ecology secretary-general Tsai Chih-hao (蔡智豪) said that under Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) regulations on the use of recycled bottom ash, the bottom ash can only be used for road construction and base landfill, so it is clearly illegal to dump it in farmland.
Although some of the heavy metals detected were within the Soil Pollution Control Standards’ permissible levels, they exceeded the standards for farmland, he said.
Tsai said that the dioxin detected in the soil at the site in Cingshuei was about 60pg-TEQ/g, which was much higher than the average of 3.88pg-TEQ/g of farmland in Chang-hua County last year, adding that the maximum allowable level of dioxin in farmlands in Sweden and Canada is 10pg-TEQ/g, while the Netherlands is even stricter, with a limit of 1pg-TEQ/g.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) said the EPA has begun promoting the use of recycled bottom ash from incinerators since 2007, with a NT$2.26 billion (US$74.73 million) budget to subsidize public construction and private sector works between last year and next year.
“I suspect that some companies applied for recycling projects, but actually disposed of the bottom ash somewhere else, just to claim the subsidies,” she said, urging the agency to amend the standards and regulations to clearly prohibit the dumping of bottom ash in farmland, to protect food safety
He Jiane-rin (何建仁), an EPA section chief who sits on the Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Management Board, said examinations done on the soil and groundwater in the area showed both were normal, but added that the agency would consider amendments to clearly prohibit bottom ash being dumped in farmland.
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