Environmental groups yesterday urged the Taichung City Government to cancel the Tungho Industrial Park (通和產業園區) project, saying that it is a rehash of the closed Ching Chuang Kang Industrial Park (清泉崗產業園區) project and should not have entered the environmental impact assessment (EIA) review process.
Government Watch Alliance chief executive officer Hsu Hsin-hsin (許心欣) said the habitats of ring-necked pheasants and leopard cats in Dadu Mountain (大肚山) would be fragmented by the proposed nearly 20-hectare project area, which is long and narrow in shape.
She also condemned the city government for failing to extend the regulatory force of the Autonomous Ordinance for the Conservation of Leopard Cats in Taichung (臺中市石虎保育自治條例) to private construction projects as much as to public developments.
Photo courtesy of the groups
Taiwan Academy of Ecology secretary-general Liang Yu-feng (梁羽楓) said that ring-necked pheasants are an endemic subspecies and have almost disappeared from low-lying areas due to urban development.
Data from the Taichung Wildlife Conservation Association showed the bird species’ population declined to about 50 last year from fewer than than 100 in 2020, she said.
There are only three isolated populations left nationwide, Liang said, adding that the population in Dadu Mountain is the smallest.
The region is also a hot spot for leopard cats, which would not have existed without the efforts of dedicated local agricultural workers, she added.
Taiwan Tree Protection Alliance founder Angela Chang (張美惠) said the industrial park’s wastewater would be discharged into Wufu Irrigation Canal (五福圳), the water of which is channeled from the Dajia River (大甲溪) to irrigate local rice fields.
Clean Air Taichung Alliance director Lin Shih-shan (林詩珊), who is also a local resident, said that Dadu Mountain is demarcated as a Category 3 agricultural development zone in the city’s spatial plan, meaning that only agricultural developments are allowed.
The Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau should explain why it allowed a project aiming to use agricultural development land for nonagricultural purposes to enter the EIA review process, she said.
New Power Party (NPP) Taichung chapter chief executive officer Tsou Ming-yen (鄒明諺) said the project’s scope and area are almost the same as the Ching Chuang Kang Industrial Park construction project, which was proposed in 2022 and failed to pass its EIA review.
The NPP filed a criminal complaint against then-developer Chuangli Development Co for allegedly forging documents in its EIA report three years ago, he said.
However, the supervisor of the company, Wang Sung-shan (王松山), was found to also be the person in charge of Chiuting Property Co, the developer of the Tungho Industrial Park construction project, Tsou said.
According to the environmental groups’ news release and an NPP Instagram post on July 14, Wang is on close terms with former Non-Partisan Solidarity Union legislator Yen Ching-piao (顏清標) and his eldest son, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恆).
Yen Kuan-heng’s brother, Yen Chia-yi (顏嘉儀), was a board director of Chuangli Development, the NPP said.
The Wang and Yen families are behind the two projects, and their manipulation of land developments like this and EIA review represents a local systemic “black gold” force, it said.
Development in Taichung should benefit its citizens, not family businesses, the NPP said, urging the city government to cancel the project.
The Tungho Industrial Park project was reviewed in two EIA meetings in November last year and in June, with the developer asked to submit supplementary documents for further review.
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