Environmental activists rallied in front of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday afternoon, demanding it set an upper limit for the total air pollutant emissions for central Taiwan and establish an air quality monitoring station in Changhua County.
An Environmental Impact Assessment meeting was held yesterday at the EPA to discuss how to respond to air pollution from Chunghua Coastal Industrial Park.
Before the meeting, the activists said there is already too much air pollution in the county to allow any more industrial development that would create more pollution.
They asked the agency to repeal the total emissions limit set for the area by the Ministy of Economic Affairs’ Industrial Development Bureau and approved by the EPA in 1998, and instead mandate a new total emissions limit for central Taiwan.
A Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union representative said a National Science Council report showed the level of benzene in the air in the county’s Dacheng Township (大城) was considered high, and the source of pollution was likely from the Sixth Naphtha Cracker (六輕) in Yunlin County, so it was not enough just to set a total emissions limit for the industrial park.
EPA officials said it considered the temporary total emissions limit permitted in 1998 to be too loose and lacking limits for volatile organic compounds, so it had asked the bureau to file an environmental impact survey report in 2010.
It also asked the bureau in 2011 to re-evaluate the park’s total emissions limit, so it was likely the park will have a new emissiona limit it must follow.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is