The Taoyuan County Government yesterday declared a factory site formerly used by the RCA company of the US a "pollution control site," where concentrations of groundwater pollutants exceeded national standards.
But when comprehensive treatment of the groundwater pollution can be carried out, official said, remains uncertain.
Based on the Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Law (土壤及地下水污染整治法), passed last November, the county government's Environmental Protection Department yesterday said officially that groundwater at the 8-hectare factory site and for a radius of half a kilometer around it were seriously contaminated by trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
The plant was originally built for and used by RCA. It opened in 1970.
Due to inadequate environmental legislation in Taiwan, both polluters and landowners have in the past been lax about treating long-term soil and groundwater pollution.
New environmental laws, officials said, made it possible to compel polluters to treat the contaminated groundwater at the site.
"We hope to further announce the site as a "pollution remediation site," after carrying out a preliminary assessment to obtain evidence showing that the site is likely to seriously endanger residents and their environment," said Chou Chung-sheng (周崇聖), a section chief of the department.
If so, Chou said, the local government would demand polluters and landowners to come up with a treatment project.
A problem was that, Chou said, for rules of carrying out the necessary preliminary assessment were lacking because they were still being drafted by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).
EPA officials, however, said that until the rules are established, local governments could still demand polluters and interested persons (such as landowners) of a "pollution control site" to come up with a project to "control" the site within one month. Violators, officials said, would be fined ranging from NT$1 million to NT$5 million.
"Controlling the site means preventing pollutants from permeating outside the site," said Lin Chien-hui (林建輝), deputy director-general of EPA's Bureau of Water Quality Protection.
Remediation, on the other hand, means to actually clean up the site.
Lin said it was time for both polluters and landowners to solve controversies surrounding the pollution. EPA officials confirmed that the concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at 20 wells for monitoring the quality of groundwater exceeded national standards. The EPA has difficulties in identifying the precise geographical extent of the pollution, but suspects that pollutants have contaminated groundwater at least 90m beneath the surface of the earth.
RCA operated two Taiwanese plants in Taoyuan and Hsinchu between 1970 and 1986.. In 1986, the US' General Electric Company purchased RCA's two plants but sold them two years later to the French company, Thomson.
Before the Taoyuan plant closed in 1992, when it was sold by Thomson to the Taiwanese Ever Fortune Group (長億集團), waste chemical solvents were discharged into a secret well without receiving any treatment.
In 1994, legislators revealed the long-term soil and groundwater pollution at the site. In 1996 Thomson refused to treat groundwater pollution after they removed surface soil polluted by chemical solvents.
Lacking adequate legislation, the EPA urged Ever Fortune to complete the treatment of groundwater pollution. The landowner, however, just ignored the request.
The pollution received widespread publicity in 1998 when former workers from the plant were found to have a high incidence of various forms of cancers. Around 1,000 were diagnosed with cancer of whom about one fifth have already died.
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