The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) has approved an environmental impact assessment for a project to build a third runway at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
An EPA committee meeting on March 25 approved the assessment after the airport’s operator, Taoyuan International Airport Corp, promised to bolster disaster prevention and control measures, and hold one aircraft rescue or firefighting drill every year, as the planned runway is close to an oil storage facility operated by CPC Corp, Taiwan.
The airport company also promised to conserve more than 1,000 trees in the project area by transplanting them to a different location when construction starts and returning them to the site later.
However, several environmental protection groups issued a joint statement saying that the committee passed the project without conducting a thorough assessment of risks posed by the oil depot or relocation fees for land expropriation.
It is estimated that 2,599 hectares of land would have to be expropriated for the project and an estimated 6,190 households with more than 16,000 residents would be forced to relocate, the statement said.
The groups said they do not rule out filing an appeal to seek an administrative remedy.
The company said that the project is part of the airport’s efforts to expand its facilities and upgrade its services in accordance with the government’s Taoyuan Aerotropolis project and its goal to boost the local economy.
As the airport is the nation’s main gateway, there is an urgent need for a third runway, it said.
Once a third runway is built in the airport’s north, the runway in the south would be used less frequently, reducing air and noise pollution in the area, the company said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS