The government’s first-phase offshore wind-power generation project has been remanded to the developers, who have been asked to resubmit their proposal once they have more data on the project, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday.
The Fuhai Changhua Offshore Wind power Generation Project had been referred to a second-stage environmental assessment due the project’s proximity to an Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin habitat and protected reefs.
According to Articles 8 to 12 of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法), a detailed notice on potential environmental consequences must be published within 30 days, should the assessment committee decide that a proposal needs to undergo a second-stage environmental assessment.
A public hearing involving local residents, developers and experts should be held at the end of the 30-day period, according to the act.
The project was intended to be built between 8km and 13km off the coast of Changhua County’s Fangyuan Township (芳苑), with a combined capacity of less than 120MW, the EPA said, adding that it was to take two years to build.
Environmental protection groups protested the proposal, saying that the planned location for the wind farm was too close to a dolphin habitat and protected reefs.
The amended proposal would have placed the wind farm 2.9km out of the dolphin habitat and foundations for the pylons were to be laid in waters more than 30m deep, avoiding fishing zones and protect reefs.
The originally planned 3MW and 5MW turbines were to be changed to 8MW turbines to cut down on the number of units, while spacing between turbines was to be increased to 0.8km on the east-to-west axis and 1km on the north to south axis, the amended proposal said.
Monitoring equipment for birds would be set up prior to, during and after the construction of the wind farm to track the movements of birds in the area, the proposal said.
The committee blocked the amended proposal and remanded it to a special task force.
The subsequent proposal must include analysis on soil liquefaction and the dangers posed to the turbines by earthquakes and subgrade reaction, the committee said.
The applicants also had to provide more information on the relationship between the wind farm and local wind forces, as well as underwater cultural assets, the committee 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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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