The Yunlin County Government on Monday rejected the Central Weather Bureau’s construction permit request for a weather radar station in Kouhu Township (口湖) after more than 100 protesters rallied to demand a halt to the project.
The project had long been contentious with township residents who are worried about potential radiation emissions, former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) said during the rally.
The bureau and the county government have ignored the repeated pleas that she made when she was a lawmaker to drop the plan, Chang said.
Photo: Liao Shu-ling, Taipei Times
The government needs to hold public hearings to allay residents’ concerns before making a decision, she said.
The proposed station is too close to a residential area and the bureau moved a similar station from Pingtung County to Kaohsiung after health concerns were raised about its radiation emissions, Independent Yunlin County Councilor Huang Wen-hsiang (黃文祥) said.
Local opposition to the project is not surprising, because the bureau has been not been transparent about the effect of such a station on public health, said Tsai Meng-chen (蔡孟真), another independent councilor.
“The bureau should conduct a town hall meeting to explain this as soon as possible,” she said.
Yunlin Economic Affairs Department Director Lin Chang-tsao (林長造), who arrived at the rally later, told the protesters that the proposed station was part of the bureau’s planned network of storm detection radars.
The system, which the then-KMT government approved in 2014, was supposed to reduce detection time by one to three hours, which would help mitigate losses of life and property, he said.
However, since local residents have misgivings about the project, the county government has decided to reject the bureau’s application, he said.
The department would ask the National Communications Commission, whose remit includes the regulation of magnetic wave emissions, to conduct studies on the health impact of the proposed station, Lin said.
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