Under heavy pressure from environmentalists and residents in southern Taiwan, a committee under the Cabinet-level Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) decided yesterday to postpone sending a plan for the controversial Pinnan Industrial Complex (濱南?u業區) for a final EPA review next month.
At an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) review meeting for the project yesterday, the project's developers, the Tuntex Group (
In addition, the developers said several controversial environmental issues, including the project's possible impact on the ecological system, the loss of lagoons and soil liquefaction, had been studied comprehensively and no problems had been found.
Environmentalists differed, however, saying the area's coastal ecology would be destroyed once the Chiku lagoon (?C股溼|a) is transformed into an industrial park.
By then, they said, all the endangered black-faced spoonbills, which now reportedly number less than 600 globally, would be gravely endangered for lack of wintering sites.
Environmental activists said at the meeting that the Pinnan project should be cancelled immediately because the Chiku lagoon has been classified by Bird Life International, an organization that has worked in cooperation with the Council of Agriculture (COA
EPA officials decided yesterday to allow experts to investigate the proposed field at the southern site again, to study the possible impact on the ecology of the Chiku lagoon near the Tsengwen River Estuary (
Environmentalists have been working to persuade the EPA to prohibit the use of the lagoon for industrial development since 1993, when the Tuntex Group and Yieh-loong Co first proposed building the industrial complex, which is to include a petrochemical plant and a steel-making facility.
Legislators opposed to the project said at the meeting yesterday that the report provided by the developers was "tricky" to evaluate.
"We see obvious faults in the EIA process. It's very hard to convince us that the report is true, because the environmental engineering consultant was hired by the developers," said Su Huan-chih (
"I would lose faith in the government if the Pinnan project -- reflecting the contradictory policies of this country -- is approved," Su said.
Su said that in any case, high water-demand industries should not be encouraged in their development, since Taiwan is plagued by a chronic lack of water resources.
Other officials, including the county commissioner, claimed they had a different perspective.
"Development does hurt the environment. But as a commissioner, I cannot look at this matter only from the angle of environmental protection," Chen Tang-shan (
Chou Wu-liu (
The politicians' remarks did not go down well among local fishermen from Chiku, who expressed their anger by banging on several tables at the meeting.
"The only thing I care about is the oyster fields where I have spent my entire lifetime. Am I wrong to fight for my right to live?" one long-time oyster farmer said.
"I don't understand why we fishermen have become third-class citizens in our own country. The government always takes coastal land to build industrial parks," he said.
Environmentalists said yesterday that they would highlight several ecology-related issues, such as carbon dioxide emissions from the proposed site, to organizations in the international community in a bid to pressure the government to reconsider its industrial development policy.
"In the Pinnan project, we see that people's right to live has been ignored by the government and industry. We can never restore the ecology once they start to build the complex," said Huang Min-ching (
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