Tue, Feb 24, 2015 page3

• INTERVIEW: Environmental activist blasts nation’s politics

  An investigation launched by Lin Chang-mao and his fellow environmentalists last month discovered that Yu Hung, a waste removal company, had dumped excessive levels of heavy metal pollutants into Shenmei Pond — an artificial pond once used to irrigate farmland in his hometown of Taoyuan. ‘Taipei Times’ reporter Sean Lin caught up with the veteran activist to discuss his campaigns and the challenges he sees for Taiwan’s environmental protection movements

  An investigation launched by Lin Chang-mao and his fellow environmentalists last month discovered that Yu Hung, a waste removal company, had dumped excessive levels of heavy metal pollutants into Shenmei Pond — an artificial pond once used to irrigate farmland in his hometown of Taoyuan. ‘Taipei Times’ reporter Sean Lin caught up with the veteran activist to discuss his campaigns and the challenges he sees for Taiwan’s environmental protection movements

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  Taipei Times (TT): What got you into environmental protection?

  Lin Chang-mao (林長茂): It all started in about 1992 when the government approved the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (then-Taipei County) Gongliao District (貢寮). I was running a shop selling auto parts and metal sieves. One day, my truck driver was on leave, so I made a delivery in his place. I was driving a truck on my way to Taipei Nangang District (南港) when I saw a crowd of protesters sitting in the scorching summer heat in front of the legislature on Zhongshan S Road.

  After making the delivery, I returned to the demonstration with 12 boxes of bottled water, which I had bought from a supermarket, and handed them out to the protesters, who thanked me profusely. That was when a man in shorts handed me a VHS tape and some documents.

  

  Veteran environmentalist Lin Chang-mao is interviewed in Taipei on Feb. 9.

  Photo: Sean Lin, Taipei Times

  The man was oceanography professor and anti-nuclear activist Yan Chao-yueh (楊肇岳) and the tape was about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It opened up a whole new frontier for me and educated me on the implications of using nuclear energy. I went back to the sit-in that same night and have remained an environmental protection activist ever since.

  TT: What was the most memorable event during your time as an environmental activist?

  Lin: It was in 1995. Wang Yu-lin (王玉麟) — a resident of the radiation-contaminated Minsheng Villas — and I brought two radiation detectors to help a man verify whether his new home was built with radioactive materials.

  After confirming that his home was not contaminated, we stepped onto the street when one of the devices, which we had forgotten to turn off, started beeping. To make sure that it was working normally, I quickly turned on the other one and then both devices started beeping in unison. It was really weird.

  Then, I discovered the color of the asphalt was somewhat unusual. Later that night, I took a mattock and dug up some asphalt from the road, dissolved it in diesel and examined its texture with a microscope. It was nothing like ordinary asphalt

  I took some of the asphalt to Japan — using two tin cans which I sealed up with tea leaves and packaged nicely to avoid trouble passing through customs, and showed it to nuclear physics professors at Nagoya University, Hiroshima University and the University of Tokyo. They subjected it to forensic analysis and the result left them totally dumbfounded.

  “Where did you get this? This contains uranium-238 and thorium-232 — the material for building atom bombs,” they said.

  I told them it was from an ordinary road, and they expressed disbelief. They finally believed me after they traveled to Taiwan and tested the asphalt for themselves.

  Later on, Wang and I worked with taxi drivers in then-Taoyuan County to install about 200 radiation detectors, which we imported from Ukraine, on their vehicles and uncovered a dozen more radiation contaminated roads across the county, some of which were in front of elementary schools.

  As our investigations continued, we found out that the fissile materials came from the Nuclear Research Institute at Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology in Taoyuan [County], which was secretly developing nuclear bombs for national defense purposes.

  Fuel rod accidents at the institute led to six explosions and one fire, which contaminated dozens of hectares of farmland between Dasi (大溪) and Longtan (龍潭) districts.

  As protests escalated, the institute finally agreed to dig up the contaminated soil at the farms and bury it in a hole in its vicinity. The soil is still being kept there today.

  TT: What do you think is the greatest challenge facing Taiwan’s environmental movements?

  Lin: The biggest problem is Taiwan’s political culture. Most of the environmental issues I have encountered over the past 30 years or so have stemmed from unclear separation of administrative powers between politicians and government officials.

  Politicians from both the pan-green and pan-blue camps have stooped so low as to become agents of influence peddling. They have even gone as far as colluding with government agencies and the judicial system to intercede for polluters. No wonder these companies have become so blatant about committing violations.

  What caused this phenomenon is the electoral system. Politicians want to maintain good relations with corporations, because if they turn a blind eye to the environmental wrongdoing of businessmen, they increase their political donations which greatly aids their election campaigns.

  The public are generally kept in the dark about this collusion. Little by little, Taiwan is being devoured [by large corporations] until there will be nothing left.

  Take the last Taipei mayoral election as an example. Why did Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) defeat candidates from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)? The people hoped an independent candidate could bring about change. If the KMT and DPP continue to deceive the public and harm the environment, the public will one day see through their hypocrisy.

  We would like to appeal to Ko that he not show any mercy toward the dishonest Farglory Land Development Co, even if it means that the Taipei City Government would have to forfeit its bid to host the 2017 Universiade.

  The problematic emergency evacuation strategies in Farglory’s construction plan pose a grave threat to the safety of the Taipei Dome, and the barbaric way the company relocated the trees in the area of the site has further reduced Taipei’s urban vegetation cover index, which currently stands at just over 4 percent compared to Singapore’s 47 percent.

  Nothing is more important than safety. People’s lives cannot be valued in financial terms. Since Farglory has violated several agreements set forth in its contract with the city government, Ko should order the dismantling of the Taipei Dome and restart the bidding process for the project, to send a warning to potential violators.
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