A planned third liquefied natural gas terminal project in Taoyuan was yesterday rejected by the Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) environmental impact assessment (EIA) committee, even though high-ranking Ministry of Economic Affairs officials stressed its urgency.
A meeting was held to review the terminal construction project off the coast of Datan Borough (大潭) in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) proposed by state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan.
While the project was in 2000 approved by the EPA, the utility in June last year proposed a modified development plan, which has undergone four EIA committee reviews and four meetings with experts.
Over the past year, CPC has been required to submit more documentation about ecological surveys and risk management, while environmentalists have presented findings about wildlife near the project site.
Academia Sinica biodiversity researcher Allen Chen (陳昭倫) and other researchers on Monday announced the discovery of endangered scalloped hammerhead sharks on the coast, following their discovery of protected Polycyathus chaishanensis coral last year.
The Taoyuan Local Union and other groups at a news conference in front of the EPA before the meeting started at 9:30am said that the project would inevitably affect local ecosystems and demanded that the utility scrap the project.
Nearly 60 members of the Taiwan Petroleum Workers’ Union rallied next to them, saying that they voluntarily came to express their support for the project and that the union would push CPC to realize its promise to minimize the project’s environmental impact.
The utility has decided to reduce the project’s development area from 232 to 37 hectares and not to build an incinerator and a storage area for petrochemical products, CPC vice president J.Z. Fang (方振仁) said during the meeting.
Building the terminal in New Taipei City’s Port of Taipei (台北港), as suggested by some environmentalists, would require 15 more years and delay the terminal’s gas supply to the Datan Power Plant, originally planned to begin in 2022, Fang added.
The project would not be conducted by CPC alone — the ministry would back its promise, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) said.
CPC chairperson Tai Chein (戴謙) also attended the meeting for the first time, promising that the company would avoid affecting protected wildlife while building the terminal.
However, many committee members said that the utility’s ecological documentation was still insufficient when compared with that presented by environmentalists, and that it failed to convince them that Datan is the only possible venue.
After the more than five-hour meeting, the committee decided to return the project to the ministry, the utility’s supervisor, but the decision must be confirmed by the EIA grand assembly.
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European
The Taipei District Court sentenced babysitters Liu Tsai-hsuan (劉彩萱) and Liu Jou-lin (劉若琳) to life and 18 years in prison respectively today for causing the death of a one-year-old boy in December 2023. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Liu Tsai-hsuan was entrusted with the care of a one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), in August 2023 by the Child Welfare League Foundation. From Sept. 1 to Dec. 23 that year, she and her sister Liu Jou-lin allegedly committed acts of abuse against the boy, who was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries on Dec. 24, 2023, but did not
Taiwanese indie band Sunset Rollercoaster and South Korean outfit Hyukoh collectively received the most nominations at this year’s Golden Melody Awards, earning a total of seven nods from the jury on Wednesday. The bands collaborated on their 2024 album AAA, which received nominations for best band, best album producer, best album design and best vocal album recording. “Young Man,” a single from the album, earned nominations for song of the year and best music video, while another track, “Antenna,” also received a best music video nomination. Late Hong Kong-American singer Khalil Fong (方大同) was named the jury award winner for his 2024 album
Hong Kong singer Eason Chan’s (陳奕迅) concerts in Kaohsiung this weekend have been postponed after he was diagnosed with Covid-19 this morning, the organizer said today. Chan’s “FEAR and DREAMS” concert which was scheduled to be held in the coming three days at the Kaohsiung Arena would be rescheduled to May 29, 30 and 31, while the three shows scheduled over the next weekend, from May 23 to 25, would be held as usual, Universal Music said in a statement. Ticket holders can apply for a full refund or attend the postponed concerts with the same seating, the organizer said. Refund arrangements would
RSS