More than 100 residents of Taichung’s Dali District (大里) on Friday held a rally in protest of the fly ash dumped at a landfill in Dali by the city’s Environmental Protection Bureau, with Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) promising reasonable disposal measures.
Joined by Taichung City Councilor Su Po-hsin (蘇柏興), protesters assembled outside a convention center in Dali, holding placards and handing a petition to Lin, while calling for the city government to remove fly ash produced by incineration plants at the city’s Wuri (烏日), Nantun (南屯) and Houli (后里) districts that the bureau dumped at the Dali landfill this month.
Local borough wardens Huang Jen-yao (黃仁耀) and Yang Ching-lu (楊進祿) expressed concern over toxic substances contained in the ash, such as dioxins and heavy metals, saying that rainfall could lead to the leaking of such substances, which could contaminate drinking water in the greater Datun (大屯) area.
Su said the bureau told residents in May that it had to dump unprocessed garbage at the landfill site before transporting it to neighboring municipalities for incineration, as the city’s incineration system was inadequate.
However, the bureau smuggled the fly ash into the landfill without residents’ consent, Su said.
Some container packs were broken and ash was exposed, which could lead to air and water pollution, Su said.
Although an impermeable liner is laid beneath the landfill, the liner could deteriorate within 30 years. The Dali landfill is also on an active fault line, making the site more vulnerable, Su said, adding that he resolutely opposes burying fly ash at the site.
Lin said that the city government would make its coal ash disposal methods transparent and all ash buried at the site must pass toxicity tests, the criteria of which are set in accordance with the Environmental Protection Administration’s regulations.
The city government’s monthly examination of water quality and dioxin concentration of fly ash would be conducted on a weekly basis in the future and ash burial would be immediately halted when abnormal results are found, Lin said.
Bureau director Hung Cheng-chung (洪正中) said that it is legally permissible to bury coal ash at the Dali landfill site and all ash generated by the city’s incineration plants would be stabilized and processed so that no toxic substances would be released.
Dioxin is only soluble in organic solvents and rainfall cannot contribute to dioxins leaching, Hung said.
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