A controversial proposal to expand the Central Taiwan Science Park in the Dadushan (大肚山) area of Taichung, in what is described as the fifth phase of the park, was approved by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday amid concerns over the already grave situation with pollution in central Taiwan.
“It was a decision made too rashly,” environmental groups said after the project was approved by the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) panel.
The groups said that they are planning to bring the park’s management to administrative court aiming to overrule the EPA’s decision.
The proposed development, which would use 53.08 hectares of land originally belonging to the military’s branch munitions depot in Dadushan, is scheduled to be converted into an 18-inch screen production factory for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and used by other companies, including Giant Bicycles.
Environmental protection groups have said that the Taichung area is saturated with heavy-industry factories, and called for the EIA panel to move to the second stage.
The difference between the first and second stages of the EIA is that the first stage is a review based on submitted documents, while the second stage requires on-site inspections.
The park’s management office, however, maintained that the risk to health should the expansion be approved did not exceed recommended levels, adding that it would continue to provide whatever documents were needed to help assuage such fears.
According to Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union spokesperson Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華), the park’s health risk report did not include an assessment of multiple chemical substances, adding that though the park had commissioned the Industrial Technology Research Institute for a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry test, it had avoided using peak values for three out of the 15 gas pipes.
“We suspect that the values of the pipelines not included contained carcinogenic materials,” Chen said.
Changhua County Environmental Protection Union secretary-general Shih Yueh-ying (施月英) said the park should seek to better utilize its vacant spaces before planning the expansion.
The current level of air pollution in the Taichung area is severe and units within the park should seek to ameliorate emissions and meet promised standards, Shih said.
According to the management office, emissions stand at 4.12 tonnes per year, taking up 0.05 percent of total emissions in the nation.
The management office promised that it would seek to lower emissions by 4.917 tonnes per year and to decrease 2.5 micrometer airborne particles in the area.
The EIA panel said that the park’s assessment had adopted “the greatest possible risk denominator” and come up with a figure of less than 1 percent carcinogenic risk, prompting it to pass the review.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan and CNA
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS