Environmental groups yesterday gathered in front of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) in Taipei to protest the illegal dumping of toxic waste by Young Yang Environmental Industry Corp (永揚環保事業).
The Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) and dozens of Tainan residents -provided -photographs to support their claims that Young Yang, located in Dongshan Township (東山), Tainan County, illegally dumped slag and other toxic waste into underground dumps, seriously harming the environment.
The union said massive rainfall brought by Typhoon Fanapi last month exposed the slag and other toxic waste secretly buried by Young Yang. Irregular ground levels also showed the ground contained material that was not originally part of the landscape, the group said.
Residents protested by bringing contaminated fruit and vegetables grown in the area. The protestors also brought with them pieces of what they claimed to be slag that had been buried by Young Yang.
The EPA report showed the site had a pH value of 11.9, which is very close to slag’s pH value of 12, TEPU spokesperson Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said. The demonstrators called for government officials to conduct a full investigation into the matter and analyze the contents to determine which types of toxic waste Young Yang had dumped.
“The EPA should stop dragging its feet and revoke Young Yang’s license to operate,” Chen said.
TEPU and Tainan residents have been fighting against the company’s practices for years. In 2007, they alleged that graft was involved in the government’s decision to approve the landfill project. They said that the environmental impact assessment for the company had been falsified.
In response, the EPA pledged to investigate the matter and issue a punishment if it found that toxic waste was dumped illegally.
However, recent water tests showed that the water quality in the area was safe and up to standard, so the administration assured the residents that in the meantime, they did not need to be concerned.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
RSS