A legislator accused the military of allowing the dumping of construction rubble in unauthorized areas after he was sent a videorecording of trucks dumping waste, allegedly from a military construction site.
Military officials said that they would investigate whether the waste-processing contractor for the site was breaking regulations.
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Tseng Tsahn-deng (
Trucks had been videoed earlier this month dumping rubble from the renovation project on empty land adjacent to National Highway No.3, a considerable distance from Miaoli County, Tseng told a press conference.
The Sixth Army Corps was supposedly overseeing the renovation project, but its personnel were nowhere to be seen in the video, he said, even though all the time schedules of the trucks had been stamped with the corps' authorization.
Tseng suggested that the video raised questions on whether the military was faking documents.
He also said that many of the trucks shown in the video did not belong to the designated waste contractor but to another company.
Military officials said at the press conference that they would look into the allegations, but gave assurances that the military was not responsible for allowing the random dumping of debris.
They said they would also investigate whether the contractor was using trucks that had not been registered and authorized by the corps.
Although there were no military personnel at the Taoyuan renovation site, one soldier always accompanied one of the trucks hauling away the rubble, the officials said.
Tseng said that the waste being dumped along the freeway included metal strips, debris and wood, all of which are classified as B8-type waste by the Construction and Planning Agency.
However, the military had registered the waste from the renovation project as B5-type, or just concrete shards.
Tseng said that B5-type waste is cheaper to process and that by dumping metal and other material into B5-waste land, the military was responsible for causing severe land pollution.
According to the provisions of the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法), the dumping of waste in non-designated areas is subject to a fine of NT$3 million (US$91,841), and a prison sentence of between one and five years.
Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and the environmental police team under the National Police Agency said that if the Ministry of Defense provided sufficient information on its renovation sites, they would subsequently investigate each military residence construction site to see if any illegal dumping was occurring.
Tseng urged the ministry to seal-off the land where the waste was allegedly illegally dumped and begin an investigation immediately.
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