An environmental group yesterday protested against the proposed expansion of the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP) near Dadu Mountain (大肚山) in Greater Taichung, saying the project would destroy the last remaining greenbelt on the mountain.
The Taiwan Water Resources Conservation Alliance said that under the plan, heavy metal wastewater would be discharged into the area.
The park’s administration is proposing to convert a 53.08 hectare area that used to be the ammunition depot near Dadu Mountain into a fabrication plant for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) 18 inch wafers.
A world-leading bicycle manufacturing company is also expected to establish its global operations and research and development headquarters in the area, the administration said.
The administration added that without the park’s expansion there would be a negative impact on the nation’s competitiveness in those industries.
However, the group said the project would use an estimated 47,000 tonnes of water every day — twice that of the park’s fourth expansion project — and create a total industrial wastewater discharge — that may contain heavy metals — of about 38,000 tonnes every day.
“There are still some unused spaces in the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park (彰濱工業區), so the new development in this area is unnecessary,” alliance director Jennifer Nien (粘麗玉) said.
She suggested that a health risk and impact assessment be conducted for the larger area, including the park’s first and second-phase areas, Taichung Industrial Park, Taichung Coal-Fired Power Plant and the Dragon Steel Plant.
Although the Environmental Protection Administration’s environmental impact assessment committee had at first concluded that the park’s administration should conduct a health risk and impact assessment on the “total output” of the park’s first and second-phase areas, as well as the new proposed area, after the park argued that it would take too long to finish the assessment the committee changed its decision, the alliance said.
The conclusion was changed to requiring a health risk and impact assessment report only on the “additional output” from the park’s first and second-phase areas and the proposed expansion area in the plan.
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