Wed, Feb 11, 2015 page3

• Gridlock, regulatory errors halt progress in road talks

  ROADBLOCK: While residents and activists challenged government plans for a highway, an EIA member’s error overturned an effort to uncover gas pipelines

  • By Sean Lin / Staff reporter
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  Environmental protection groups and residents from Kaohsiung’s Daliao District (大寮) yesterday demonstrated in front of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) building in Taipei to protest a Ministry of Transportation and Communications plan to construct Freeway No. 7.

  The protesters said the project would cut through an area with a high concentration of underground gas pipelines, and it could result in a recurrence of the Kaohsiung gas pipeline explosions on July 31 and Aug. 1 last year, which killed 31 people and injured more than 300.

  The project, which plans to build a 70m-wide highway for heavy-duty freight vehicles, spans 4.3km between the South Star industrial complex and Renwu District (仁武).

  The protesters urged the EPA to halt the scoping meeting for the petrochemical complex and Renwu, and to resume discussions after a comprehensive map of the pipelines is completed, describing the project as a “matter of life and death” that is not to be taken lightly.

  At the scoping meeting held at the EPA later yesterday, officials from the Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau said that the bureau would bypass pipelines in the area by constructing an elevated highway.

  However, researcher Li Han-lin (李翰林) of Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan expressed concern over what he described as shockwaves generated by traffic on both the overpass and Provincial Highway No. 17 underneath it, saying they would create an exponential impact on the pipelines, leading to gas leaks.

  He said that there are at least eight groups of 86 underground pipelines — including those of state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan; Formosa Plastics Corp; China Petrochemical Development Corp; and many other firms — deployed along the 4.3km stretch, giving the area the highest density of such pipelines in Kaohsiung.

  Last year’s fatal blasts were caused by leaks from just eight pipes, and the consequences would be unspeakable if a similar incident were to take place in the area, Li said.

  Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union spokesperson Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said the Kaohsiung City Government promised to publish a map of the municipality’s underground pipelines following the explosions, but has not yet honored that pledge.

  She called on the government to lay out plans to move pipelines from the municipality’s densely populated areas — as it promised — and asked environmental impact assessment committee members to halt scoping the project. She said the process should be resumed after residents’ opinions are considered and when complete geographical data on pipelines become available.

  Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Wu Hung-mo (吳宏謀) conceded during the discussions that the government is still unsure about the locations of some older pipelines and that shockwaves transmitted from the overpass’ beams would be a potential danger.

  He recommended conducting test excavations to determine whether the project would cut through any pipelines that remain unaccounted for.

  The proposal immediately met with strong objections from residents and environmental protection groups, who said that the move would put residents’ lives at risk, and asked bureau and Kaohsiung City Government officials whether they would assume responsibility if the test excavations result in pipeline blasts.

  However, bureau officials insisted that the excavations were needed for the safety of residents. With the disparate views between the two sides, the scoping meeting degenerated into a gridlock.

  EIA committee member Lee Yu-ming (李育明), who presided over the meeting, later announced that 11 test excavations, 10 at both ends of the roads which the proposed construction would pass through and one in the South Star complex — are to be carried out when authorities obtain accurate data on the pipelines’ locations, and that the distribution of management responsibility between publicly and privately owned pipelines should be clearly laid out during the operations.

  He later revoked all the aforementioned resolutions, saying that he overlooked the rules on the nation’s construction procedure, which stipulate that test excavations should be conducted after a developer obtains approval to start construction, but the project being discussed is still at its designing stage.

  The participants went on to discuss alternatives to the proposed route for the highway.

  Although the meeting went on for three hours, it ended with no conclusions.
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