The Control Yuan yesterday said that a Chaunghua County site selected for a petrochemical complex was unsuitable in view of land subsidence problems in the area.
“Available surface water resources in Chaunghua and Yunlin counties of 380,000 tonnes a day are not sufficient ... Water-intensive industries such as the Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co (國光石化) project, which needs 400,000 tonnes of water a day, should not be introduced to the region,” the government watchdog said in a report.
The government should abandon the planned fourth-stage expansion of the Central Taiwan Science Park in Chaunghua’s Erlin Township (二林), the report said. The science park, the Erlin Precision Machinery Park Development Project and the Chaunghua Coastal Industrial Park already consume about 155,000 tonnes, 14,100 tonnes and 22,000 tonnes of water a day respectively, it said.
One problem that could arise from the Kuokuang project is that more groundwater would have to be pumped to maintain a stable water supply during shortages, which would compromise the effectiveness of measures to improve land subsidence problems, the report said.
The report, by Control Yuan member Lee Ping-nan (李炳南) and three others, was based on their review of the government’s land subsidence prevention proposal for the region.
By comparing land subsidence rates and areas of continuous land subsidence in Chunghua County in the years 2001, 2006 and 2009, it was found that the rate of subsidence had clearly slowed after some remedial measures were taken.
The average land subsidence rate in Chaunghua County in 2009 was about 5.7cm per year, down from 8.9cm in 2006 and 17.6cm in 2001, while the areas of continuous land subsidence, defined as having subsidence rates exceeding 3cm per year, spanned 78.1m2 in 2009, 278.3m2 in 2006 and 408m2 in 2001.
The report said the highest rate of subsidence in Chaunghua County had been observed in Dacheng Township (大城鄉), where a wetland — the nation’s second-largest — was proposed as the location for the Kuokuang project. The subsidence rate there was 6.9cm per year in 2006 and 1.6cm per year in 2009.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) earlier this week said a decision on whether to proceed with the project would be made before next year’s presidential election, pending review of its environmental impact assessment.
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