The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday held a committee meeting of experts to assess the differential impact of the sixth and seventh stages of the fourth-phase expansion of Formosa Plastics Group’s sixth naphtha cracker complex in Mailiao (麥寮), Yunlin County.
The sixth stage includes the establishment of a polycrystalline silicon (P-Si) plant, which would benefit the photovoltaic solar industry. P-Si is a key component in the manufacture of solar panels.
The seventh stage includes the construction of a hydrogenated styrenic block copolymer plant.
Prior to the meeting, environmental groups held a protest in front of the EPA headquarters, saying the pollution generated by the plant was leading to illness among the residents living near it and any expansion would make the situation worse.
The protesters said the expansion should go through a complete environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure rather than the more superficial differential environmental impact evaluation held yesterday.
At the rally, Janis Wang (王佳貞), from the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association said according to a report by Formosa Plastics, “the death rate and incidence of liver cancer among people living in Mailiao increased after 1995 and was higher than in other parts of Taiwan.”
Moreover, a three-year health risk investigation conducted by the Yunlin County Government showed that the lung and trachea health of residents in Mailiao and Taisi Township (台西) was clearly worse than that of people living 10km away, Wang said.
This was the result of chronic exposure to carcinogenic substances, such as vinyl chloride and benzene, emitted by the plant, she added.
The groups said the sixth stage would generate an additional 1,330,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, which is about equal to the amount of reductions achieved during the past 10 years.
During the meeting, representatives from several environmental groups said the expansion plans would increase the original production scale of the plant by more than 10 percent and they have to go through a full EIA process. They added that the developer should provide investigation reports and improvement plans to prove the safety of the expansion plan since there have been seven industrial accidents at the plant in the past year.
The experts’ analysis focused on water usage, saying that water used for cooling at the plant should be recycled and could be redirected to the local community to relieve water shortage problems.
“It makes no sense for the local government to ask residents and farmers to reduce water usage while allowing the sixth naphtha cracker to shift its water usage to its newly expanded plants,” an official from the Yunlin County Environmental Protection Bureau said.
Committee members also voiced concerns about the expanded plant’s planned solutions to deal with pollution, saying that they were not explained in detail by the developer.
The meeting concluded that both the sixth and seventh stages of the expansion plan needed to be evaluated again at the next meeting after the developer submits supplementary plans on its water usage and greenhouse gas emission, as well as an analysis report on the impact of toxic chemicals on local residents.
The Grand Hotel Taipei on Saturday confirmed that its information system had been illegally accessed and expressed its deepest apologies for the concern it has caused its customers, adding that the issue is being investigated by the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau. The hotel said that on Tuesday last week, it had discovered an external illegal intrusion into its information system. An initial digital forensic investigation confirmed that parts of the system had been accessed, it said, adding that the possibility that some customer data were stolen and leaked could not be ruled out. The actual scope and content of the affected data
DO THEY BITE IT? Cats have better memories than people might think, but their motivation is based entirely around the chance of getting fed Cats can remember the identity of the people who fed them the day before, Taipei-based veterinarians said on Friday, debunking a popular myth that cats have a short memory. If a stray does not recognize the person who fed them the previous day, it is likely because they are not carrying food and the cat has no reason to recognize them, said Wu Chou Animal Hospital head Chen Chen-huan (陳震寰). “When cats come to a human bearing food, it is coming for the food, not the person,” he said. “The food is the key.” Since the cat’s attention is on the food, it
A New York-based NGO has launched a global initiative to rename the nation’s overseas missions, most of which operate under the name "Taipei," to "Taiwan Representative Office (TRO)," according to a news release. Ming Chiang (江明信), CEO of Hello Taiwan, announced the campaign at a news conference in Berlin on Monday, coinciding with the World Forum held from Monday through Wednesday, the institution stated in the release. Speaking at the event, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Jie (黃捷) said she believed this renaming campaign would enable the international community to see Taiwan
TOO DANGEROUS: The families agreed to suspend crewed recovery efforts that could put rescuers in danger from volcanic gases and unstable terrain The bodies of two Taiwanese tourists and a Japanese pilot have been located inside a volcanic crater, Japanese authorities said yesterday, nearly a month after a sightseeing helicopter crashed during a flight over southwestern Japan. Drone footage taken at the site showed three bodies near the wreckage of the aircraft inside a crater on Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture, police and fire officials said. The helicopter went missing on Jan. 20 and was later found on a steep slope inside the Nakadake No. 1 Crater, about 50m below the rim. Authorities said that conditions at the site made survival highly unlikely, and ruled
RSS