The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday ordered the developers of the proposed Pinnan Industrial Complex (
The EPA was scheduled to finalize its conclusion of the EIA yesterday, but postponed it after protests by environmentalists and fishermen from Tainan County.
Once the EIA's conclusions are finalized, construction of the complex would be allowed to proceed after final approval is given by the Executive Yuan.
Holding placards that read: "It's a lie that industrial development will bring local prosperity," environmentalists urged the EPA to halt the assessment for what they called an "out-of-date" project.
"Environmental officials in the new government should find better ways to seek solutions when industrial development and environmental protection confront one another," said Shih Wu-hung (釋悟泓), an activist from the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan.
By the end of last year, the EPA's EIA committee had convened a total of 66 meetings since the project was proposed by the Tuntex Group (
During that time, the two companies have revised the details of their controversial proposal several times in an effort to appease environmentalists and speed passage of the EIA.
At the last meeting, which was held last December, the EPA's EIA review committee conditionally passed the EIA by dropping one of the most controversial components of the project -- the industrial harbor -- and specified that this particular aspect of the plan would be the subject of a separate EIA.
The review committee concluded that the Pinnan project was acceptable with the adoption of a number of provisos. In total, 27 conditions were set and eight supplements were ordered to be written into the proposal. In addition, nine suggestions as to work to be undertaken by other government authorities were appended.
Shao Kwang-tsao (
Environmentalists are still angry that the approved project will consume 5 percent of the area of the Chiku Lagoon (
At a discussion session prior to the EIA meeting yesterday, environmentalists lashed out at the EPA for what they described as "perpetrating a gigantic fraud."
"According to a previous conclusion made by the EIA review committee, the lagoon would only be affected if a harbor were to be constructed there. Since the plan for the industrial harbor was omitted [in the scaled-down proposal] the EPA should have not approved the use of 5 percent of the area of Chiku Lagoon," said Shieh Jyh-cherng (謝志誠), an agricultural engineering professor at National Taiwan University.
Environmentalists have said that proposed steel-making and petrochemical plants in the industrial complex would damage coastal ecological systems and pollute the environment.
"If all proposed industrial projects were approved, Taiwan will have difficulty in cutting its carbon dioxide emissions. Taiwan should not diverge from international trends," said Sue Lin (
But not all present at yesterday's meeting were opposed to the industrial development.
Tainan County Commissioner Mark Chen (
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