Residents of Miaoli County’s Jiouhu Township (九湖) expressed strong opposition to plans for a landfill to be created near Jiouhuashan (九華山) and the Jiouhu Plateau.
The Hsinchu Science Park has proposed dumping waste produced by the Tongluo branch of the Hsinchu Science Park at a Jiouhuashan site.
Jiouhu representative Lee Jui-ting (李瑞廷) said the township is known for its proximity to the walkway across the peaks of Jiouhuashan, with two suspension bridges overlooking a valley that offers views of Tongsiao (通霄) and Yuanli (苑裡) townships, as well as the Taiwan Strait.
Photo: Peng Chien-li, Taipei Times
On either side of the pathway, tung trees grow, offering a beautiful canopy when the trees blossom, further enhancing the reputation of Jiouhu as a tourist attraction, Lee said.
However, one of the valleys that the bridges pass over has seen preliminary deforestation that usually heralds construction, while township residents began hearing rumors that the Hsinchu Science Park management office, the supervisor of the Tungluo branch, intended to construct a landfill site in the valley, Lee said.
Office deputy director Chang Chin-feng (張金豐) said that while the office hoped to make do without constructing any waste disposal facilities, the county government’s Environmental Protection Bureau said that regulations require them to be in place.
Preliminary plans for the Tongluo branch call for two incinerators and a landfill, Chang said, adding that a 991m2 landfill planned for the Jiouhu area would only store non-recyclable, non-flammable and stable business waste that would not affect the environment.
No toxic or chemical waste will be allowed into the compound, Chang said, adding that the facility is expected to be finished by 2018.
The office would see to the restoration of the ecology and replant all the trees that were cut down to make room for the facility, Chang said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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