The prosecutor investigating the Kaohsiung water pollution case now suspects that more than 3,000 tonnes of untreated toxic solvent may have been dumped in the same way all over the island.
Kaohsiung District Court yesterday evening detained Hung Yu-cheng (
"Since 1997 Shengli has had a contract with Eternal Chemical (長興) to handle the latter's chemical waste. From 1997 to the end of 1998 the waste went to Shengli's plant [for treatment] but after that time, it's not known where the [waste] ended up," prosecutor Yeh Ching-tsai (葉清財) said.
The prosecutor and police also found that Shengli has contracts with hundreds of plants to deal with their industrial waste.
Tsai said that after late 1998, Shengli, which is a legal ISO 14000 waste handler, subcontracted the disposal of untreated toxic waste from Eternal Chemical to transportation dealers that were not qualified to handle waste.
"According to the arrested, [the subcontractors] dumped [the waste] into whatever rivers and creeks they liked," Tsai said.
He said that the estimated amount of toxic waste dumped from the end of 1998 to the end of 1999 is more than 3,000 tonnes, since on average Eternal Chemical commissioned about 300 tonnes of waste to Shengli every month during that period. But the exact amount remains unclear.
From late 1999 until June no transactions occurred between the two companies, according to the prosecutor.
On Monday it was discovered that from June until last Saturday, when three suspects were arrested while discharging toxic waste into Chishan River (
High Court Prosecutor General Lin Jie-der (
"The prosecutors will investigate whether there are gangsters getting involved in these pollution cases," he said.
Eternal Chemical yesterday was still insisting on its innocence. Its vice general manager said at a news conference yesterday that the contract the company held with Shengli was legal.
"As for how Shengli dealt with the waste, it's not our responsibility to interfere," he said.
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