The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday held a round table meeting with academics and civic groups to discuss the possibility of adjusting soil contamination control guidelines in the hopes of striking a balance between industrial development and public health.
The agency recently said it hoped to relax restrictions on a range of heavy metals and chemicals discharged into soils by factories, including cadmium, arsenic, lead, copper and zinc.
Yang Kai-hsing (楊鎧行), head of the Comprehensive Planning division of the EPA’s Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Fund Management Board, said the existing values governing arsenic and lead levels released into soil are stricter than those of other countries and are therefore out of date.
Citing WHO statistics, which recommend a daily intake of 10mg/kg and 45mg/kg respectively, Yang also suggested the possibility of lowering the control values on copper and zinc discharged by plants into neighboring rice paddies, saying that the crop can only absorb a certain amount of the two substances.
The human body is able to absorb a maximum of 2.57mg of copper and 10.26mg of zinc on a daily basis; therefore, the two substances do not affect rice crop safety or threaten public health, he said.
However, environmentalists have questioned the plan, accusing the EPA of attempting to manipulate its oversight mechanism to reduce plant maintenance costs.
Taiwan Water Resources Conservation Union director Jennifer Nien (黏麗玉) said that the soil contamination control guidelines sets the control values for heavy metal pollutions at between 3.3 and 40 times the background value of farmland, putting the nation in the middle rank in terms of restriction enforcement compared with other countries.
Citing one of the EPA’s proposals, which asks: “Is it necessary to identify the possible causes of drinkable underground water being exposed to heavy metals, since it is unlikely that heavy metal pollutants transfer and guidelines are already in place?” she said that what matters more than the pollutants’ immobility are their concentration levels and states, adding that the EPA’s proposal misses the point.
Changhua County Environmental Protection Union secretary-general Shih Yueh-ying (施月英) called on agency officials to establish control standards on the pollution such chemicals cause west coast fisheries, saying that seafood is an important part of Taiwanese cuisine.
Tsai Hung-te (蔡鴻德), executive secretary of the management board, said that while he agrees with some of the groups’ demands to tighten controls on pollutant levels in residential areas, parks and farmland, he hopes that the restrictions on plant-discharged heavy metals can be relaxed.
“If control standards can be established according to land use, we hope the restrictions imposed on factory-discharged cadmium and nickel can be relaxed, from 20 to 100 parts per million [ppm] and from 200 to 1,000ppm respectively,” he said.
“However, all control values proposed by the Environmental Protection Administration are negotiable and no decisions will be made before agreements are reached with citizens,” he said.
STAY AWAY: An official said people should avoid disturbing snakes, as most do not actively attack humans, but would react defensively if threatened Taitung County authorities yesterday urged the public to stay vigilant and avoid disturbing snakes in the wild, following five reported snakebite cases in the county so far this year. Taitung County Fire Department secretary Lin Chien-cheng (林建誠) said two of the cases were in Donghe Township (東河) and involved the Taiwan habus, one person was bit by a Chinese pit viper near the South Link Railway and the remaining two were caused by unidentified snakes. He advised residents near fields to be cautious of snakes hiding in shady indoor areas, especially when entering or leaving their homes at night. In case of a
A tropical disturbance off the southeastern coast of the Philippines might become the first typhoon of the western Pacific typhoon season, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The system lacks a visible center and how it would develop is only likely to become clear on Sunday or Monday, the CWA said, adding that it was not yet possible to forecast the potential typhoon's effect on Taiwan. The American Meteorological Society defines a tropical disturbance as a system made up of showers and thunderstorms that lasts for at least 24 hours and does not have closed wind circulation.
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Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
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