A planned landfill project in Tainan would exacerbate economic inequality between the north and south, campaigners said yesterday, calling for the withdrawal of the approval of the project’s environmental impact assessment following the discovery of new fault lines.
“Economic development has resulted in most factories being built in the nation’s south with their corporate headquarters in Taipei, meaning that a lot of tax revenue goes to Taipei, while the south has to deal with the pollution,” said Hsu You-jen (許又仁), a Tainan resident and founding chairman of the National Federation of Teachers’ Unions.
He called for the overturning of a 2003 Environmental Protection Agency decision to allow 18.7 million tonnes of industrial waste to be buried in 41.19 hectares in Tainan’s Longci District (龍崎).
Development has been stalled since protests by local residents caused the Tainan City Government to decline a construction permit.
A 2011 agreement between Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) and the Executive Yuan stipulates that development would not begin unless it wins a majority of residents’ approval, but the recent discovery of a suspected active fault line nearby has led to renewed calls that the project be formally withdrawn.
“The fault line will allow wastewater from the landfill to infiltrate groundwater,” Hsu said, adding that the landfill site conflicts with government development plans focusing on tourism, including cleaning up nearby streams and constructing a bike trail and tourist farm.
He said the proposal — which would technically use “industrial park” land — was precipitated by a faulty zoning process, which designated the former military factory site an industrial park.
The nation’s northern, central and southern regions use one industrial waste dumping site within the “industrial park,” he said.
“Tainan does not have a back garden like Taipei’s Yangmingshan, so it is a rarity to find a place that overlooks the Tainan plain,” he said, calling for the “bad lands” to be turned into a geological park.
“Why does the south have to have two industrial waste sites? Are we supposed to be the nation’s landfill?” he said.
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would
Starlux Airlines on Tuesday announced it is to launch new direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Ontario, California, on June 2. The carrier said it plans to deploy the new-generation Airbus A350 on the Taipei-Ontario route. The Airbus A350 features a total of 306 seats, including four in first class, 26 in business class, 36 in premium economy and 240 in economy. According to Starlux’s initial schedule, four flights would run between Taoyuan and Ontario per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flights are to depart from Taoyuan at 8:05pm and arrive in California at 5:05pm (local time), while return flights
Nearly 800 Indian tourists are to arrive this week on an incentive tour organized by Indian company Asian Painted Ltd, making it the largest tour group from the South Asian nation to visit since the COVID-19 pandemic. The travelers are scheduled to arrive in six batches from Sunday to Feb. 25 for five-day tours, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The tour would take the travelers, most of whom are visiting Taiwan for the first time, to several tourist sites in Taipei and Yilan County, including tea houses in Taipei’s Maokong (貓空), Dadaocheng (大稻埕) and Ximending (西門町) areas. They would also visit
HOSPITAL VISITS: Shin Kong Mitsukoshi pledged to give the families of the four people who died NT$11m each and provide support for staff working at the time The central government would assist local governments to enhance public safety, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday as he visited people in hospital who were injured in an explosion at a department store in Taichung on Thursday. A suspected gas explosion occurred on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang department store in Taichung at 11:33am on Thursday, killing four people and injuring 36. Of the 40 casualties, 39 were hospitalized, Ministry of Health and Welfare data showed. Three died after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, the data showed. As of 6am yesterday, 25 of those injured had been discharged from hospital, leaving 11