The Kaohsiung Environmental Protection Bureau has proposed a three-point plan for tackling air pollution after Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) said he was surprised by the pollution levels he witnessed while surveying the Love River (愛河) via helicopter on Wednesday last week.
First, a task force led by experts and academics would be set up to inspect air pollution control equipment at steel and petrochemical factories inside Linhai Industrial Park (臨海工業區), helping owners with upgrades and heat recovery, the bureau said.
Second, stricter standards would be introduced to lower emissions of air pollutants at electrical facilities, the bureau said.
Photo copied by Chen Wen-chan, Taipei Times
The 25 worst air polluters would be required to cut emissions by half, it said, adding that the new regulation, which would be implemented in two phases, should reduce annual consumption of bituminous coal by more than 2.5 million tonnes, and emissions of sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide by 2,800 tonnes and 4,700 tonnes respectively.
Third, legislation would be drafted requiring factories to use low-sulfur fuel, which would reduce sulfur oxide emissions by about 40 percent, the bureau said, adding that is it likely to be implemented in October.
The project would be carried out over three years, it added.
Bureau Director Yuan Chung-shin (袁中新) on Thursday last week spent the night in Dalinpu Village (大林蒲), near industrial park, to speak with environmental protection groups and residents.
The groups singled out China Steel Corp for allegedly storing coal ash out in the open and releasing pollutants into the air.They asked the bureau to urge the company to move the storage site indoors.
The bureau said China Steel would move its sintered ore storage indoors by the end of the year and is working on a schedule for replacing its wet quenching tower with a dry quenching facility.
It has already asked the company to speed up its schedule for the transformation, the bureau said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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