Greater Tainan residents opposed to a plan by the local subsidiary of Rotam Global Agrosciences, a Hong Kong-based agrochemical company, to construct a new plant in Sinhua District (新化) are scheduled to begin an indefinite sit-in in front of Wu-te Temple (武德殿) in the district tonight.
Initiated by the Tua-Bak-Kang Green Environment Front (大目降綠色環境陣線), a civic group founded by people who live in the Sinhua area, sit-ins are to be staged every weekend from 7am to 6pm.
The sit-in is the latest effort by Sinhua residents who protested outside the company’s groundbreaking ceremony for the project on April 1 and urged a halt to construction until public hearings can be held to clarify their concerns.
Photo: Wu Chun-feng, Taipei Times
The residents are worried that the materials used by the company to manufacture its products, which range from insecticides and herbicides to other crop protection products, could pose a threat to the local environment and to their health.
The company said in a statement yesterday that it plans to invest NT$2.5 billion (US$81.65 million) in the plant, which will focus on research, development and material mixing, not manufacturing, and is expected to create 800 jobs.
It dismissed allegations that it made a backroom deal with the government so that it could build in the middle of farmland rather than in the city’s Yongkang Industrial Park so that it could proceed without going through an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
“Rotam is a legitimate manufacturer of crop protection products and we have filed for a construction permit for the planned plant in accordance with the law,” the company said in the statement.
It also said it was exempt from producing an EIA report because the planned plant is not considered a chemical factory.
The recent wave of protests against the project were the result of a lack of communication, Rotam said, adding that an “unsubstantiated smear campaign” would only aggravate social divisions.
However, Greater Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) said Rotam had yet to apply for a factory permit with the city government and he urged the company to halt construction until all concerns were resolved.
“A construction permit is different from a factory permit,” Lai said.
The city government would adopt the strictest standards in assessing companies that plan to invest in the city and would never do anything at that would harm the environment or residents’ health, the mayor said.
Meanwhile, Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) said the plan to construct a bypass road for Provincial Highway No. 13 was unlikely to affect the endangered leopard cats in the county.
Liu’s remarks came one day after the EIA general assembly decided to return the plan to an EIA specialists’ meeting for further review, saying the road — which would run from Tongluo Township (銅鑼) to the Sanyi Interchange of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1) and cut through a very important habitat for the leopard cats — further endangering the animals.
“The central government only agreed to allocate NT$5.2 billion for the project after several county commissioners and lawmakers had fought very hard for it for the past decade… I do not know how many decades Sanyi (三義) residents are going to have to suffer traffic congestion in the area,” Liu said.
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