Environmental groups yesterday said they would file an administrative lawsuit after their appeal to revoke the approval of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Keelung was rejected.
Led by the Protect Waimushan Action Group, the groups had sought to overturn an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the fourth LNG receiving terminal at Hsieh-ho Power Plant, but the Administrative Court in January dismissed the appeal.
The groups said the assessment, approved last year, contained multiple inaccuracies and was hastily approved.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The Hsieh-ho Power Plant is Taiwan’s only heavy-oil-fired power plant. The terminal is part of an upgrade and reconstruction plan proposed by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), which involves dismantling four oil-fired units and replacing them with two gas-fired ones, with a combined capacity of less than 2.6 gigawatts.
The plan also calls for approximately 14.5 hectares of land reclamation to construct LNG storage tanks and unloading terminals for a fourth natural gas receiving station, intended to stabilize power supply to northern and eastern Taiwan.
Environmental groups have raised concerns about the project’s potential impacts on marine ecology, port operations and navigation safety.
Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之), convener of the Protect Waimushan Action Group and chairman of the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, said that Taiwan’s energy transition has become an excuse for aggressive development, with the EIA process effectively turned into a “development accelerator” and a “pollution cover-up.”
The Hsieh-ho plant has long caused severe soil contamination, with heavy metals and total petroleum hydrocarbons exceeding legal limits by multiple times, sometimes even dozens of times, Wang said.
Whistle-blowers exposed the issues before the EIA meeting, yet the committee ignored errors and misrepresentations in Taipower’s data, he said.
The groups’ administrative lawsuit to revoke the EIA states that portions of Taipower’s assessment report were released one day before the EIA meeting, contravening rules requiring publication seven days in advance.
Soil contamination information was inaccurate, coral identification data contained errors, illegal landfilling occurred in protected areas and the scope of review was not properly redone, the groups said.
The lawsuit further states that the project threatens the Port of Keelung and that claims regarding reductions in air pollution and carbon emissions in the EIA were inaccurate, while the assessment ignored the impacts of climate change.
The issues justify revoking the EIA, the group said.
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