While Tao Aborigines from Lanyu Township (蘭嶼), Taitung County, continue to voice their opposition to the local nuclear waste storage facility, the residents of Nantian Village (南田) in the county’s Daren Township (達仁) — and its neighboring areas — are also engaged in a heated debate over whether the village should become the home of the next nuclear waste dump.
With rough winds blowing from the northeast, huge waves pounding the coast, a main road that rarely has any traffic and poorly maintained houses, the small village of Nantian — located on a narrow strip of flat land between the Pacific and the Central Mountain Range and on the border of Taitung and Pingtung counties — looks like a place that’s isolated from the rest of the world.
With a population of only about 300, most people would never have heard of the village if it had not been chosen by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) in 2010 as one of two candidate sites — along with Penghu County’s Wangan Township (望安) — for a permanent nuclear waste storage facility.
Wangan was quickly removed from the candidate list, because the majority of the population, as well as the county and township governments, immediately expressed strong opposition. However, for Nantian — a traditional domain of the Paiwan Aboriginal tribe — the situation was more ambiguous, as voices of both opposition and support exist.
“The voice of opposition [to building a nuclear waste storage facility in Nantian] mostly comes from tribal leaders, elders and the church, because they believe that the land our ancestors passed down to us should be protected and should not be abused by outsiders,” Nantian village warden Kulele Kavuruan said. “However, most of the younger generation supports having the storage facility here, because our village is so lacking in resources that if we don’t get help from the outside, we will have to abandon the village one day.”
Kavuruan was referring to promises from Taipower that it would provide a total of NT$5 billion (US$169 million) in compensation, as well welfare measures such as free lunches for students, if the village lets Taipower build its permanent nuclear waste storage facility there.
“The huge amount of money could be very helpful to the village economically, and then it would also help bring some job opportunities to locals,” the village warden said, adding that he also supports having the storage facility in his village. “If Taipower could make it really safe, then why not?”
Eyeing the benefits that Taipower’’s money could bring, about 70 percent of villagers support the plan, while 30 percent object to it, Kavuruan said.
“More people have expressed reservations since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, last year, but the voice of support still wins a upper hand here,” he said.
The situation in Nantian is different from Lanyu (also known as Orchid Island), Kavuruan said. Radiation leaked in Lanyu because the nuclear waste barrels were stored above ground and have rusted because of the strong winds carrying salt from the ocean, he said.
“But here, Taipower plans to dig tunnels in the mountains and place the barrels inside the tunnels,” he said. “Besides, Taipower told us that the radiation would be gone in 20 years.”
In fact, the low radioactive nuclear waste stored in Lanyu -contains Co-60 and Cs-137, but Kavuruan said he was never told about it and Taipower did not explain in detail about all the chemical elements the nuclear waste might contain.
“I have to admit that most of us [villagers] know it would be better if there’s no nuclear waste in this village, but look around, what resources do we have? How do we survive?” Kavuruan said. “We don’t expect Taipower’s compensation to bring prosperity, we’re merely looking at survival.”
He said the villagers had hoped to develop tourism, taking advantage of the area’s natural scenery, locally produced Nantian marble and traditional Paiwan handicrafts, “but we’re located at the end of the world. It’s not easy to bring in visitors.”
Nantian is just 72km from Taitung City, the main city and point of entry for visitors, but it takes more than two hours to drive to the village, along a winding, narrow, bumpy road with the ocean on one side and cliffs on the other.
The Taipei Times attempted to interview other residents in the village, but most of them are elderly and only speak the tribal tongue.
Residents in neighboring Dawu Township (大武), which is only a 10-minute drive away from Nantian, take a very different view from Nantian villagers.
“This is a beautiful place, we don’t want it to be contaminated with nuclear waste,” said Lin Ching-chu (林景足), a woman in her 60s who owns a seafood restaurant in Dawu. “The coastline of Taitung is one of the very few sections in the country that does not have any factories or industrial pollution. Why do we want to bring in nuclear waste?”
She said that as a restaurant owner, she is proud to provide fresh fish caught along the coast by local fishermen.
“Would you eat fish caught near the coast with a nuclear waste store sitting on it?” she asked.
Lin’s son, Chung Chih-hung (鍾志鴻), a father of two in his 30s, agreed.
“If you look at Lanyu’s example, you would see that most ordinary residents wouldn’t get any of Taipower’s money, it’s the township officials and political leaders who would get it,” Chung said. “The people of Lanyu have been deceived for 30 years, we should learn their lesson.”
“Besides, what right do we have to decide what kind of environment our next generations should live in?” he added.
Chan Wu-lieh (詹武烈), owner of a photo studio in Dawu, was also strongly opposed to the nuclear waste storage plan.
“Taiwpower says it’s 100 percent safe, but who could guarantee that? Who would take the responsibility if something went wrong?” he asked.
Chan said the candidate site is only 4km from Pingtung’s Mudan Reservoir (牡丹水庫), which supplies fresh water to Pingtung.
If a radioactive leak occurred, “it would have a huge impact on the safety of the water supply to Pingtung residents,” he said.
According to the Act for Site Selection and the Creation of Permanent Storage Facilities for Low Radioactive Waste (低輻射廢棄物最終處置場選址設置條例), a county-wide referendum must be held before a final decision is made on building the nuclear waste storage facility in Nantian.
The county government has announced a plan to hold the referendum, but the exact date has yet to be decided.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS