The National Science Council yesterday said it would stop public infrastructure work at the Central Taiwan Science Park’s Phase 3 Development Zone and would not take applications to establish operations at the zone until it passes an environmental impact assessment by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).
The EPA, the council and the science park administration yesterday received a ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court calling on construction work at the science park to cease.
“Our understanding of the ruling is that it does not apply to manufacturers that are already in the science park,” Central Taiwan Science Park Administration chief executive Yang Wen-ke (楊文科) said. “Therefore, whether or not the manufacturers can continue operating is not an issue.”
That means AU Optronics (友達光電) and Sunner Solar Co (旭能光電) will be able to continue their operations at the phase 3 zone, which is located in Houli Township (后里), Taichung County.
Yang said construction that had already begun at the park’s Phase 4 Development Zone would also stop, as would further development work at the zone.
REFORM
The controversies surrounding the expansion of the Central Taiwan Science Park have prompted academics to propose reforms to the Environmental Assessment Act (環境影響評估法).
Former minister without portfolio Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) said Taiwan could follow the US, where a developer is in charge of assessing the environmental impact of its own project. The stakeholders, including the EPA and other government agencies involved, are then required to offer their opinions without any reservation, which are non-binding.
Yeh said that the EPA’s power to decide whether a project could proceed or not should not be rescinded and the government agency in charge of the project should be the one responsible for the environmental impact assessment.
“On the surface, the EPA seems to be able to ‘veto’ a development project through the results of the environmental impact assessment review, but that is not so in reality,” Yeh said. “[As a government agency] the EPA is on its toes to ensure that projects pushed by the Executive Yuan will pass the environmental impact assessment review.”
POLITICAL ISSUE
As a result, “the environmental impact assessment is the main [political] battlefield,” Yeh said. “Under this pressure ... the EPA’s environmental impact assessment has lost its [true] meaning.”
“The US Navy, for example, voluntarily assessed the impact of drilling on the environment. This shows the importance of the developer taking the initiative in minimizing a project’s impact on the environment,” Yeh said.
The proposal, however, has been heavily criticized by environmentalists.
“I have attended many environmental impact assessment meetings and I have noticed that if the project is part of government policy, the government agencies involved usually say ‘no comment’ or simply follow instructions [from above],” lawyer Tsai Ya-hsin (蔡雅欣) said.
“This is what happened with the Central Taiwan Science Park, when [a government agency like] the EPA has the right to ‘veto’ a project. How can I expect the EPA to say something else when it no longer has the right to say no?” he asked.
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