Anti-nuclear activists from Taipei County protested in front of KMT headquarters and the Legislative Yuan yesterday to highlight unresolved issues relating to the storage and treatment of radioactive waste produced by existing nuclear power plants.
KMT officials, irritated by the demonstration, said that they too would rally supporters to protest in front of the Presidential Office.
Dozens of anti-nuclear activists threw empty nuclear waste storage barrels into the square in front of KMT headquarters in Taipei, shouting their opposition to nuclear waste.
Protesters, mostly from the remote townships of Chinshan (
"Three operational nuclear plants, built under inappropriate policy made by former KMT administrations, have turned several towns into nuclear dump sites," said a resident.
Residents said that they were told by Taiwan Power Company (Taipower, 台電), the nuclear plant developer, that temporary storage for such waste at two plants in Taipei County would continue for only 40 years.
Residents said Taipower built incinerators and dry storage facilities for handling waste from nuclear plants because the company had failed to find a permanent disposal site for the storage of nuclear waste.
Protesters said that KMT officials should take some nuclear waste home with them to experience the fear of being contaminated by radiation.
Anti-nuclear activists said that KMT officials, who had previously promised to provide a permanent disposal site, were unqualified to oppose the DPP government's intention of scrapping the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, currently over 30 percent complete and awaiting a final decision on its fate.
"Since alternatives have been presented by the DPP-led government, we call for the plant to be scrapped to avoid the creation of one more nuclear waste dump," the residents wrote in their statement.
The protesters' call was echoed by anti-nuclear residents from Kungliao (
"If the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is abandoned, we will still have to fight together with residents living near existing operational plants who have lived with the threat of radioactive contamination," a Kungliao resident, Wu Wen-tung (吳文通), told the Taipei Times.
Wu said that anti-nuclear activists' ultimate goal was to turn Taiwan into a nuclear-free country.
When protesters moved to the outside of the Legislative Yuan, their appeal for abandoning nuclear energy drew the attention of anti-nuclear legislators, including the KMT's Jao Yung-ching (
Irritated KMT officials and legislators, however, said that they suspected that the anti-nuclear demonstration had been planned by the DPP.
"We demand that the DPP apologize to us as soon as possible, or we will rally our supporters to protest in front of the Presidential Office," said KMT Legislator Lin Jih-jia (
Meanwhile, environmentalists in Russia expressed their concern over Taiwan's nuclear waste issue by sending a local group an e-mail message.
Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of Ecodefense, an international alliance against nuclear transport across Europe, said that the group had obtained documents on an "illegal deal" concerning import of Taiwanese radioactive waste to Russia's far east.
"Russian environmental and citizens groups will actively and successfully oppose any efforts to construct a repository that includes the added complication of foreign radioactive waste," Slivyak wrote.
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