The Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) Environmental Impact Assessment Committee yesterday accepted a motion that German wind power company InfraVest Wind Power Group should change the proposed site of its A1 wind turbine, to be built in Miaoli County’s Houlong Township (後龍), on the basis that it poses a potential threat to the habitat of the threatened Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin.
The company planned to set up four wind turbines in the township, of which the A1 turbine’s proposed site falls in the range of the dolphins’ habitat, which was delimited by the Council of Agriculture (COA) in April.
Council delegates reiterated during a committee meeting yesterday that the company should plan according to the scope of the dolphin’s habitat promulgated by the council, rather than following their own definition of the marine animals’ habitat.
InfraVest public affairs manager Kang Yi-lun (康依倫) said in response that the A1 wind turbine is to be established in docklands and therefore would not endanger the dolphins’ habitat.
The company has in recent years sparked public outrage when it built four wind turbines in Miaoli County’s Yuanli Township (苑裡), a project that residents criticized as being carried out without their consent being sought.
The wind turbines emit loud high-frequency sounds, which local activist groups say have detrimental effects not only on residents, but also on the dolphins.
According to an EPA official who declined to be named, the company has agreed to move the proposed site for the A1 turbine out of the scope of the dolphins’ habitat and look for an alternative.
The official added that the company would deliver a new plan, along with detailed reports on the other three turbines it plans to set up in the township, to the assessment committee for further deliberation.
The Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins live along Taiwan’s west coast, between Miaoli County and Greater Tainan.
With a population of only about 70, the animals face multiple dangers that threaten their survival, such as wastewater discharged by factories and gillnetting.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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