Hundreds of Kaohsiung residents on Monday filed a lawsuit against the developer of a proposed landfill in Cishan (旗山) and Neimen (內門) districts after the first environmental impact assessment (EIA) was held for the project.
The residents said the developer allegedly forged a geological report on the planned industrial waste landfill on a 28 hectare plot on Matou Mountain (馬頭山) to win government approval.
Kao Shu-hui (高淑慧), director of a self-help association against the landfill, said residents found groundwater under the site, which means the landfill could pose a threat to the groundwater system, but the developer’s report said there was no groundwater in the area.
“The association drilled six wells around the proposed site and found groundwater in two wells. However, the developer tried to cover up the fact that there is groundwater as its report says there is no water 30m underground,” Kao said.
“According to the National Land Surveying and Mapping Center, the proposed site is in a water quality protection area, which should have been enough for the Kaohsiung City Environmental Protection Bureau to reject the development application,” she said.
Association member Kung Wen-hsiung (龔文雄) said the site is also on an active seismic fault, and earthquake could cause pollutants to penetrate the ground and enter the groundwater system, contaminating drinking water sources.
Kaohsiung handles 72 percent of the nation’s industrial waste, but that percentage would rise to 84 percent if the proposed landfill was approved, the association said.
Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union spokesperson Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said the proposed site is situated on a permeable rock layer and the developer underestimated the permeability of the local geological structure to potentially mislead the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee.
Tainan City Environmental Protection Alliance director Huang An-tiao (黃安調) said the site is in an upstream region of the Erjen River (二仁溪), and the proposed landfill could contaminate the river, which already suffered serious pollution from the 1970s to the previous decade due to the development of the recycling industry.
Most of the local residents are farmers and many have been protesting against the project since last year, citing the potential environmental impact of the landfill on their farms and livelihoods.
During Monday’s EIA review, the developer estimated the landfill could process 60,000 tonnes of waste every month for eight to 14 years, and the facility could help increase the nation’s waste-treatment capacity and reduce the problem of illegal disposal.
The site was not in a water quality protection area or a groundwater protection area, and it was above an impermeable rock layer, the developer said, in an apparent contradiction of local residents’ claims.
The review ended with the committee asking the developer to submit its geological report to a third-party agency for analysis to help the committee understand differences between the developer’s and residents’ surveys, after which another review session will be held.
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