The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday said tests showed chromium levels were within safe limits at the Miramar Resort Village at Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原沙灘).
The tests were conducted following environmentalists’ claims that soil samples from the resort contained high levels of chromium.
On Wednesday, environmentalists said that the results of tests they had carried out showed that three of seven soil samples collected near the development site contained high levels of chromium — in some cases six times higher than permitted levels.
This led them to suspect that construction materials may have been contaminated, which may pose a risk to public health.
On the same day, Miramar said that soil tests that it had commissioned, conducted by an EPA-authorized lab, had shown levels of heavy metals in the soil were all within safe limits.
In response to questions at a meeting of the Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee at the legislature yesterday about the alleged soil pollution, EPA Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) said the agency’s latest test results showed no contamination.
Later in the afternoon, EPA Environmental Analysis Laboratory director-general Roam Guo-dong (阮國棟) said the administration had asked for the exact locations from which the environmentalists had obtained their samples, and sent inspection teams to collect samples from these locations on Wednesday.
“Five samples from a total of 12 samples collected at the site were sent to the laboratory for testing using two kinds of standard and precise methods in accordance with EPA regulations,” Roam said.
“The results showed the chromium level in the samples to be within safe limits,” he said.
The Miramar Resort Village has more than once been accused of violating the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法) in the past few years.
A Bureau of Environmental Inspection official said that the company had been reported by the bureau for violating the act seven times since 2006.
It had also been reported for violating water pollution control measures and its Environmental Impact Assessment.
However, the bureau had failed to uncover any violations during the inspection on Wednesday.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Trips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes and
Snow fell on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山) yesterday morning as a continental cold air mass sent temperatures below freezing on Taiwan’s tallest peak, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Snowflakes were seen on Yushan’s north peak from 6:28am to 6:38am, but they did not fully cover the ground and no accumulation was recorded, the CWA said. As of 7:42am, the lowest temperature recorded across Taiwan was minus-5.5°C at Yushan’s Fengkou observatory and minus-4.7°C at the Yushan observatory, CWA data showed. On Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, a low of 1.3°C was recorded at 6:39pm, when ice pellets fell at Songsyue Lodge (松雪樓), a
RSS