Dozens of residents of Kaohsiung’s Siaogang District (小港) and environmental activists yesterday protested against a proposed project to build logistics facilities on a land reclamation area as an expansion of the Port of Kaohsiung, saying the project would only increase the already serious pollution in the area.
The project plans to build logistics facilities, warehouses, parking space for container trucks and a park at the 42-hectare Nansing Free Trade Zone, a land reclamation area adjacent to the Port of Kaohsiung.
The project underwent a round of environmental reviews, but the Environmental Protection Adminsitration’s (EPA) environmental impact assessment committee in 2014 said that the project had to go through a second round of reviews, in which more stringent requirements apply, as the project would significantly affect residents of the Dalinpu area (大林埔).
Photo: Chen Wei-han, Taipei Times
Ahead of the project’s review at EPA headquarters in Taipei yesterday, protesters performed a skit and impersonated Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) and president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to enact the government’s perceived indifference to pollution and the plight of local residents.
They called on Tsai to go and stay in Dalinpu and experience first-hand how residents’ health is affected by pollution.
“Residents at six coastal boroughs in Dalinpu have suffered from air pollution caused by a group of large-scale polluters, including China Steel Corp, state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan Power Co’s Talin Power Plant and several petrochemical facilities, while the Nansing project will not only add to the pollution, but block the southwest wind in summer, the only thing that can dissipate pollutants,” resident Lin Wei-chun (林維群) said.
“We are victims of the nation’s heavy-industry development and we have suffered from pollution for years. What more does the government want from us?” Lin asked.
At a review meeting later, the developer, Taiwan International Ports Corp, said the development is a non-pollution-intensive project, as the free-trade zone is designed for logistics and transhipment operations, which do not generate much pollution.
Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union spokesperson Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) challenged the developer’s claim, saying the development is not only for transhipment operations, but also for importation purposes, which would entail traffic emissions and industrial pollution.
“The Port of Kaohsiung has become a member of the London Metal Exchange, and we reasonably believe it can pave the way for the importation and reprocessing of scrap metals at the port, which would cause pollution,” Chen said.
The committee postponed the review as protesters delayed the review process, while the committee said that in future reviews it might ask the developer to establish a regulatory mechanism to limit the free-trade area to transhipment operations only, with importation only being carried out on exceptional occasions.
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