Civil groups yesterday urged the Executive Yuan to amend the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法) during this legislative session, in light of a controversy over the Shenao Power Plant (深澳電廠), which obtained approval from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).
The EPA’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) grand assembly on March 14 approved Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) project to build a new coal-fired Shenao plant in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), after the plant was demolished in 2011.
EPA Deputy Minister and assembly chairperson Chan Shun-kuei (詹順貴) has come under fire due to his decisive vote for the project when assembly members were tied 8-8.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Despite his personal objection to the project, he was not entitled to reject it under the current legal framework, as the project had passed an assessment in 2006, Chan said, calling on the public to turn their fury into calls for amending the act.
Premier William Lai (賴清德) on Tuesday last week promised to send the act’s draft amendment to the Legislative Yuan within six months, but environmental groups yesterday questioned his resolve to reform the assessment system.
The EPA in September last year launched its draft amendment to the act, and the Executive Yuan should forward it to the legislature soon, as the legislature will become idle with the approach of the local elections on Nov. 24, the Environmental Jurists Association said.
The Shenao project highlights a significant defect of the current assessment system, as the utility is not required to re-evaluate local environmental conditions when building the plant, Green Citizens’ Action Alliance researcher Wu Cheng-cheng (吳澄澄) said.
The act should be amended to require project developers to conduct new assessments if they fail to complete construction in a given period, she said.
While Taipower is conducting a second-stage assessment for decommissioning the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門), it did not provide thorough information to local residents, who now can only argue with the utility about compensation, Northern Coast Anti-Nuclear Action Alliance executive director Kuo Ching-lin (郭慶霖) said.
The government should help residents interpret the difficult information about nuclear power plants, as the utility has to decommission two other nuclear plants and the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, and tackle the nuclear waste on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼), Kuo said, adding that the act should call for greater public participation during assessments.
Other groups said that the act should also include regulations about strategic environmental assessments for large-scale developments, such as offshore wind farms, confirm an assessment’s effect on a development’s approval and sever the symbiotic relation between developers and consulting firms.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
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