Wed, Dec 31, 2014 page3

• Activists protest naphtha cracker water use plans

  ‘WILL NOT HAPPEN’: Yunlin County environmentalists say farmers are already short of irrigation water, while FPG’s plan could exacerbate land subsidence in the area

  • By Sean Lin / Staff reporter
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  Environmental protection groups yesterday demonstrated in front of the Yunlin County Government building against the agricultural tailwater recycling plan proposed by the sixth naphtha cracker complex managed by Formosa Plastics Group (FPG), citing concerns over increased irrigation water shortages and potential land subsidence near the high-speed rail line.

  Members of the Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union (TWWPU) and Yunlin Environmental Protection Union held banners bearing caricatures and acted out skits as they said FPG’s plan would “destroy the agricultural sector.”

  Citing a resolution issued by the Environmental Protection Administration last month that said the agency would no longer be in charge of reviewing the plan to tap tailwater from Sinhuwei River (新虎尾溪) due to the “unfeasible nature” of the plan, the activists asked the county government to clarify whether it would grant FPG the water rights it requested.

  

  Members of the Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union perform a skit during a protest outside the Yunlin County Government yesterday against the agricultural tailwater recycling plan proposed by Formosa Plastics Group in connection to its naphtha cracker complex in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township.

  Photo: CNA

  The company has proposed to tap 50,000 tonnes of water every day from Nanzih Work Station and the Tienwei irrigation channel for use during the naphtha crackers’ standard operations.

  TWWPU director Jennifer Nien (粘麗玉) panned the plan, saying: “The farmers living downstream of the river run out of irrigation water from time to time and are forced to pump groundwater. How could there still be any tailwater?”

  The plan could also exacerbate land subsidence near the “Golden Corridor” — an area set aside by the Council of Agriculture to promote agriculture along the Taiwan High Speed Rail route, located only about 100m east of FPG’s water tapping points — because of the groundwater tapping downstream.

  Association of Yunlin Art, Culture and Ecology member Lin Fu-yuan (林富源) said he suspects increased amounts of pollutants the facility has discharged into the soil since it entered the fourth expansion plan in 2012 had caused malnutrition in peanuts grown downstream of the plant, resulting in what he said was an unprecedented number of “blackened and shriveled” nuts — about half of the overall peanut yields.

  He also expressed concern over the impact pollutants would have on local clam and oyster farming.

  Yunlin Government Water Resources Department Director-General Lin Jung-Chuan (林榮川) said the county government would not approve FPG’s request for the water rights at the work station, since the project would cut through a windbreak under its jurisdiction.

  He said river water flowing through the work station is upstream of the Sinhuwei River and the fields and is therefore not tailwater.

  “FPG needs to get past the Yunlin County Government for the water rights it wants. That will not happen,” he said.

  However, Central Region Water Resources Office Deputy Director Pang Chih-hsiung (龐志雄) said the office in July issued a two-year license to FPG to tap water from the Tienwei irrigation channel, between 1km and 2km downstream of the work station, after it surveyed the area and confirmed that the river section qualifies as tailwater.

  FPG Environment Safety and Health Department associate general manager Wu Tsung-ching (吳宗進) said the company had not started tapping water because it had not finished the pipelines needed for the operation.

  “We will start operations after obtaining the right to tap water at Nanzih Work Station and a careful assessment of the opinions of farmers,” he said.
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