The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday proposed a draft amendment to add the semiconductor and photonics industries to its emission monitoring system.
The proposed amendment was drafted in response to the case of missing data at Formosa Petrochemical Corp’s naphtha cracker in Yunlin County last year, EPA Department of Air Quality Protection and Noise Control Director Tsai Hung-te (蔡鴻德) said.
The incident was brought to light in January by Green Citizens’ Action Alliance, which has been keeping track of the company’s emissions on the EPA’s continuous emission monitoring system (CEMS).
The group said thousands of the plant’s entries on the system from January to November last year disappeared, including 262 that could have earned the company fines.
Tsai said the plant’s emission data entries did not show up at the time because the company had made annotations that said it was repairing or maintaining the facilities.
However, the EPA found that 12 of the annotation entries were not true, and the company has been fined for three false entries, he said.
The draft amendment proposes that emission data be sealed in the CEMS once they are uploaded, which would prevent companies from secretly revising their entries.
It also proposes including more sectors into the emission monitoring system, which currently covers the electricity, cement, steelmaking, petrochemical, paper-making and waste incineration industries, Tsai said.
The proposal would add semiconductors, exhaust burning, photonics and tape-making industries to the system, which means another 145 companies and 538 exhausts would be regulated, he added.
As for Formosa’s naphtha cracker, the system has monitored its 34 exhausts that emit 79 percent of oxysulfide emissions and 68 percent of nitrogen oxides, he said, adding that 54 more exhausts would be monitored.
Tsai said the EPA hopes the proposed regulatory amendment can be implemented in October.
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