The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday it would intensify efforts to prevent meat from diseased pigs from entering the market to allow for a clean and healthy Dragon Boat Festival this weekend.
The EPA said it would also make sure that pig farm wastewater was properly treated.
Lee Chien-te (李建德), the inspector general of the EPA's Southern Taiwan Inspection Bureau, said in a press released yesterday that the EPA had asked local environmental bureaus to ensure proper inspection of pig farms this year.
Lee said that after preliminary checks by local environmental protection bureaus, “the inspection bureau will then double check to make sure that farm owners have placed their diseased and dead pigs on trucks that have GPS tracking systems [to make sure the trucks go directly to incinerators and not to meat markets], that their wastewater treatment systems are turned on and that no unreported pipes carry wastewater into the river.”
In response, Green Party Taiwan Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) said the EPA was doing too little, too late, asking: “Shouldn't such inspection be conducted stringently on a daily basis, instead of before a festival?”
Pan said he did not know what to say to the EPA's “nonsensical” declaration.
“If they are going to 'improve' their efforts on something, they should be doing it every day,” Pan said.
“Maybe they should focus on even more pressing issues such as pollution in Taoyuan County's Siaoli River (霄裡溪), which was heavily polluted by the nearby Chunghwa Picture Tubes Longtan plant and AU Optronics Corp,” Pan said.
“And speaking about a 'happy and healthy' Dragon Boat Festival, wouldn't the children from Chao-liao elementary and middle schools like to have a happy festival as well,” Pan said.
Pan was referring to the schoolchildren affected by a gas leak last year at Ta-fa Industrial Park in Kaohsiung County's Taliao Township (大寮). Some of the children were hospitalized, and all had to attend school elsewhere afterward.
Pan said that aside from urging pig farms to refrain from selling diseased pigs, the EPA should encourage people to eat vegetarian dumplings for the coming festival.
“After all, eating vegetarian is one of the '10 no-regrets policies' on the EPA Web site,” he said.
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