Environmentalists yesterday urged the Yunlin County Government not to renew Formosa Petrochemical Corp’s (FPCC) coal-fired boiler licenses next month, while the county promised it would use the strictest criteria in reviewing the company’s application.
Dozens of environmentalists rallied in front of Douliou Railway Station, calling on Yunlin County Commissioner Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) to fulfill his promise to ban coal and petroleum coke — the primary source of air pollution in the county — or, at least, to refuse to renew the licenses that are due to expire on June 11.
“We do not oppose [FPCC’s] naphtha cracker. We oppose its air pollution,” said Wang Li-ping (王麗萍), one of the demonstrators.
Photo: Lin Kuo-hsien, Taipei Times
The protesters demanded that the company replace coal with natural gas, as it did at its plant in Texas, and asked the county government to hold a public hearing this month before deciding on renewing the licenses.
The Taipei Department of Environmental Protection held such a hearing in February to review the applications of Chang Chun Petrochemical Corp and Jinzhou Technology Corp, and eventually reduced the amount of their coal permit by 94 percent, Taiwan Healthy Air Action Alliance researcher Hsu Hsin-hsin (許心欣) said.
The Yunlin Environmental Protection Bureau can do the same, Hsu said.
She added that the group has obtained some information on the licenses, but parts of the information are not available because of FPCC’s confidentiality claims, such as the price and description of the coal it buys.
The bureau issued a statement acknowledging the group’s efforts to fight for public health and said it would adopt the strictest criteria when reviewing the company’s application to renew its licenses.
It said it had tightened control over the plant since 2015, reducing its coal permit by 2,312,726 tonnes and its petroleum coke license by 609,340 tonnes, as well as shortening the duration of its license from five years to two.
As for the group’s call for a public hearing, Air Quality Protection and Noise Control section chief Liao Chong-huan (廖崇圜) said Lee had turned down the suggestion at a meeting of the Yunlin County Council last month.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS