Environmental groups yesterday clashed with a Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp workers’ union in front of the Changhua County Government building over the company’s use of bituminous coal, a substance that makes a significant contribution to air pollution.
The company owns and runs an industrial complex that includes fabrics factories and a coal power plant in Changhua.
Operations at the coal plant could be suspended if it fails to renew its license by the end of next month, but environmentalists said the renewal should not be allowed because the plant produces excessive sulfides.
Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp workers staged a protest against the Changhua Environmental Protection Bureau, which they said rejected the company’s renewal applications several times because of pressure from environmental groups.
The company is required to use coal that has a sulfur content of less than 0.87 percent, according to an environmental permit issued to the company in 1999, but Changhua County Environmental Protection Union secretary-general Shih Yueh-ying (施月英) said the company never submitted data, suggesting that it could not meet the standard.
The bureau said the sulfur content of the coal used by the plant is 1.1 percent.
However, union director Liu Hsin-hua (劉興華) said the plant’s emissions are in accordance with legal standards, adding that the bureau conducted 15 plant inspections from May to last month, but found no emissions violations.
“The county government should review the renewal application independent of the influence of environmental groups to protect workers’ rights,” Liu said.
“The issuing and renewal of operation licenses has to follow environmental regulations, not the opinions of environmentalists,” Liu added.
“The bureau is simply doing its job. Plant workers who believe they are being abused [by environmental groups] are delusional,” Fight for Health Women’s Group Changhua Chapter director Yen Shu-nu (顏淑女) said.
Bureau spokesman Huang Wei-hsiang (黃維祥) said it is reviewing another renewal application, but the company did not submit data about the sulfur content of the bituminous coals it uses.
If the plant fails to meet the standards required, its license cannot be renewed, Huang said.
Past inspections might not have included sulfur content tests, and the bureau is still investigating why it has been excluded for the past 17 years, Huang said.
The county government in April designated the complex a “special industrial zone,” making the complex subject to stricter environmental monitoring.
The county council last month passed an air pollution bylaw, which, if approved by the Environmental Protection Administration, would effectively ban factories from using all fossil fuels except natural gas, Huang said.
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,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400