The state-owned Chinese Petroleum Corporation (CPC) yesterday received a conditional go-ahead from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to renovate its third naphtha cracker in Kaohsiung County’s Linyuan Township (林園鄉), much to the chagrin of environmentalists, who accused the EPA of deciding on the matter before the review began.
The plant was built in 1974 and began an environmental impact assessment (EIA) process for its renewal proposal in 2005. Yesterday’s decision was a complete turn-around from a ruling in October in which the EIA panel returned the case to its case committee, saying that if CPC still wanted to begin the project, it needed to go through a new EIA.
Before yesterday’s EIA meeting began, dozens of environmentalists opposing the project gathered in front of the EPA to call on EIA panelists to “be fair and unaffected by government pressure to pursue economic prosperity.”
The crowd was separated by the police from hundreds of CPC workers chanting slogans and songs, including Why? and “Workers Unite for Victory,” urging EIA members to help sustain their jobs and improve their work environment, “especially in the state of the current global economy.”
According to the ruling, CPC can begin the renewal, a NT$6.5 billion (US$196 million) project, next year and build a new factory that will triple the production of the old facility — from 230,000 tonnes of polystyrene a year to up to 800,000 tonnes.
CPC promised that the volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions will be reduced from the 2,345 tonnes a year now to 2,200 tonnes at the new plant, a 10 percent reduction.
However, the EIA panel also mandated several conditions for CPC before it could start construction, including promising to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 54 percent, and planting trees to neutralize the remaining emissions so that the total reduction would be at least 60 percent.
The EIA additionally demanded CPC conduct an epidemiological investigation as well as conduct a health risk evaluation for local residents.
In response to the decision, Mercy on the Earth director Lee Ken-cheng (李根政) said: “The case could have set an example for all renewal projects in the Petroleum Chemical Industry, as many of the factories like the third naphtha cracker were built in the 1970s.”
However, Lee said that the EIA process for the case had a “fundamental procedural problem.”
“On Oct. 8, the EIA panel rejected the proposal, but promised CPC that once it entered a new case committee review process, the proposal would be sent to the EIA panel again within two months — that is essentially agreeing to the project before it was even reviewed,” Lee said.
Lee said that by setting a time frame for the case committee to complete the process and by sending the case to the EIA panel, “Any case would be able to get a conditional okay.”
In addition, Lee said the EIA conditions were not written “professionally enough.”
First, as air pollution in the greater Kaohsiung and Pingtung area is already severe, “If there is a renewal, it needs to improve the air quality there.”
“A 10 percent decrease in VOCs is unacceptable and meaningless — it will mean that the same level in the past 30 years will be maintained; instead, the total emissions for the area should be capped,” Lee said.
Also, health risks for local residents should be specified in detail, Lee said.
“Whether the cancer risk is one in 100,000, or one in a million, you need to specify the standard, or [during execution] there is going to be more debate,” Lee said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and