Residents of Dalin Village (大林) in Nantou County on Sunday protested against a private mining company’s plan to start operations in the Baishihyah (白石牙) quartz mines in Shueisheda Mountain (水社大山), citing concerns over mining activities degrading the quality of local drinking water and potential landslides.
During a conference with Nantou County Environmental Protection Bureau, the Bureau of Mines and Forestry Bureau officials, the residents said they were worried that dirt flushed down from the mines would pollute their drinking water and the loosened soil would increase the risk of landslides, endangering the safety of about 400 households.
The 154-hectare mine is located upstream of a natural spring and the Nantou County Government has been adamant that no mining operations should be carried out in the area, which could lead the company to request compensation from the county government or the water company operating in the area.
Bureau of Mines section chief Lin Chien-hao (林建豪) said that due to poor lateral communication among relevant agencies, mining company Beiyuan in 2006 successfully extended its mining permit in the area by 10 years even though the Mining Act (礦業法) in 2003 banned such extensions for mining operations taking place in a drinking water source protection area.
Under existing laws, mining activities conducted on a space exceeding 2 hectares on a slope; 1.5 hectares on a plain; or 1 hectare in a drinking water source protection area should undergo an environmental impact assessment (EIA), Lin said.
However, since the allocation of the Baishihyah mining area dates back to 1966, preceding the promulgation of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法) and the Rules Governing the Utilization and Transfer of Reserved Mountainous Land Act (山坡地保育利用條例), the issuance of Beiyuan’s permit is not required to undergo an EIA, he said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift