Armed with data from Houjing River (後勁溪), environmental activists yesterday asked the government to immediately suspend operations at Formosa Plastics’ plant in Kaohsiung County’s Renwu (仁武), saying the firm had failed to contain groundwater pollution.
Joan Tsai (蔡卉荀), a researcher at Mercy on the Earth, Taiwan (MET), said her group had been monitoring the water quality of Houjing River since 2000, and found the water was polluted with volatile organic compounds (VOC) containing chlorine.
“We long suspected it was caused by the Renwu plant,” Tsai said. “However, this was not confirmed until this year, when the Environmental Protection Administration [EPA] conducted an inspection and found groundwater pollution emanating from the Renwu plant.”
She said the association had worked with a professor at National Kaohsiung Marine University to sample water from 14 groundwater circulation wells.
“We have been monitoring pollutant levels in the river for five months since the EPA found groundwater pollution in Renwu,” she said. “By examining 1,800 data entries, we found that the river contained VOCs, including chloroform, vinyl chloride monomer, 1,2-dichloroethane and dichloromethane.”
The levels were 1.3 times to 7.35 times higher than EPA standards allowed, she said. MET secretary-general Lee Ken-cheng (李根政) said Formosa Plastics claimed the groundwater circulation wells could pump up the polluted water and pump it back when the VOCs in the water evaporated.
“However, the evidence shows this strategy has failed to stop the pollution from spreading,” Lee said. “This means the measures taken by the Renwu plant to contain pollution have been absolutely useless.”
MET said the plant must immediately stop operations, and the government should try to determine how far the pollution has spread, and launch a health-risk assessment and epidemiological investigations in downstream areas.
Tsai Meng-yu (蔡孟裕), deputy director of Kaohsiung County’s Environmental Protection Bureau, said it would take a long time to determine if the pollutants had spread.
He said the bureau’s bi-monthly inspections showed the pollutant levels were actually decreasing.
“It is possible that the water in the wells was contaminated because of accumulated pollution from the past,” he said. “You cannot say the evidence shows the pollution from Renwu is spreading. One has to compare the data collected during both the rainy and dry seasons.”
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
New Taipei City prosecutors have indicted a cram school teacher in Sinjhuang District (新莊) for allegedly soliciting sexual acts from female students under the age of 18 three times in exchange for cash payments. The man, surnamed Su (蘇), committed two offenses in 2023 and one last year, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. The office in recent days indicted Su for contraventions of the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒童及少年性剝削防制條例), which prohibits "engaging in sexual intercourse or lewd acts with a minor over the age of 16, but under the age of 18 in exchange for
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
RSS