Civic environmental groups yesterday staged a protest at the Environmental Protection Administration in Taipei to call for Formosa Plastics Corp’s naphtha cracker in Mailiao Township (麥寮), Yunlin County, to arrange its own water supply instead of using water meant for irrigating farms during the dry season.
An ad hoc environmental impact assessment (EIA) meeting was held five years ago to review the possible environmental impact caused by the cracker’s proposed plan to meet its water usage needs. The plan entailed collecting used water from the end of an irrigation canal derived from the Sinhuwei River (新虎尾溪).
The Taiwan Water Conservation Alliance said that an EIA committee that reviewed the cracker’s 4.3-phase expansion project in 2007 had asked the plant to come up with a way to be self-sufficient in its water supply so as not to deprive the surrounding farms of too much water.
The solutions proposed by Formosa Plastics were reviewed by the agency two years ago, but the plant is still having difficulties meeting its water needs, said Wu Li-huei (吳麗慧) of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union’s Changhua Office.
Wu urged the company on behalf of the union to invest in technologies such as seawater desalination to supply the cracker with the water it needs and leave the fresh water to be used by locals and farmers.
Yunlin County Environmental Protection Union chairman Chang Tsu-chien (張子見) said that during the dry season — which typically lasts from February to May — between 40 percent and 90 percent of the water used by the cracker is meant to be used for irrigation.
Using groundwater in the dry season causes land subsidence, so the government should immediately force the plant to implement a new water supply plan, Chang said.
Changhua Medical Alliance for Public Affairs consultant Yang Joe-ming (楊澤民) said that forcing the plant to acquire its own water supply is the only way that it will invest in state-of-the-art environmental engineering technology and leave the fresh water available for farming purposes.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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