Construction on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant will not be stopped after the Atomic Energy Council’s Fourth Nuclear Power Plant Safety Monitoring Committee passed a resolution yesterday stating that the council and related agencies would continue to monitor the plant’s construction in accordance with plans proposed by state-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower).
The committee reached the decision at a final meeting, which was held at the construction site of the plant in Yenliao (鹽寮) in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮).
In August, the committee suggested that construction of the plant would be halted if Taipower — the operator of the nation’s nuclear power plants — did not provide a proposal by the end of this year on how to fix problems at the plant and ensure its safe operation.
Outside the meeting venue, about 100 protesters staged a demonstration against the plant, with Wu Wen-tung (吳文通), president of the Yenliao Anti-Nuclear Self-Help Association, saying that the protesters wanted to attend the meeting to hear the proceedings, but they were barred from entering the plant.
After negotiations, several protesters were allowed to sit in on the meeting in the afternoon. Protesters distributed a statement during the meeting asking the government to immediately halt the construction of the plant.
Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣), secretary-general of Green Citizen Action’s Alliance, said according to documents from previous safety monitoring committee meetings and the opinions of experts, Taipower could not have resolved the fundamental safety concerns in the plant’s construction, so the government should halt work on the site.
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