About 300 demonstrators from Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) yesterday protested in front of the Executive Yuan in Taipei against the government’s plan to relocate the students of an elementary school due to pollution-associated risks, saying that relocation would not curb pollution, while the move would disrupt students.
The Executive Yuan last week announced that it will move the students at Ciaotou Elementary School’s Syucuo branch to Fongrong Elementary School by the end of the semester to keep them away from pollutants, including vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), allegedly emitted by a nearby naphtha cracker run by Formosa Petrochemical Corp.
The decision was made after a study by the National Health Research Institutes showed that thiodiglycolic acid levels — an indicator of VCM exposure — in the urine of Syucuo students was higher than in students at other schools.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
However, protesters asked the government to abandon the relocation plan, saying the research might be biased and the government should solve the pollution issue instead of moving the students.
“Relocation can affect the students psychologically. Can they concentrate on their studies under such conditions?” protester Hsu Fang-yu (許芳餘) said.
Parents are more concerned than anyone else about the children’s health, but they will reject the relocation plan if the government cannot identify the pollution source or prove that relocation is necessary, Hsu said.
“Without an identifiable pollution source, the relocation plan brings an unwarranted bad reputation to the township. Will people believe the township is suitable for living?” he said.
The research was unilaterally carried out by a team led by National Taiwan University public health professor Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) and the government only listens to the team’s opinion, Hsu said, demanding the government commission a third-party research agency to run a health risk assessment.
“Who loves our children and township more than we do? Many academics and politicians who have manipulated the issue have other agendas,” Yunlin County Councilor Lin Shen (林深) said.
If high levels of VCM are detected in the environment, the issue would be more than just about relocating the students and involve the relocation of township residents or the shutting down of the VCM plant, Lin said.
The county government in August last year moved students from the Syucuo branch to Ciaotou Elementary School’s main campus, but they were moved back to the branch the following semester due to their parents’ concern about the cramped learning environment at the main campus.
Executive Yuan spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) reaffirmed the relocation plan, saying it is a preventive measure to protect the students’ health, as they are statistically more exposed to pollutants.
“We agree to demands to enlarge the scope of the health risk assessment, pollution source investigation and environmental monitoring. We will stand with Syucuo residents to protect the students’ health,” Tung said.
Tung said the rumor that the government was planning to relocate township residents is not true.
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