Environmentalists yesterday said soil samples near the controversial Miramar Resort Village in Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原沙灘) were found to contain exceedingly high levels of chromium, but the company said its test reports showed the levels were within safe limits.
After the Supreme Administrative Court ruled last month that the construction permit to build the resort was invalid, many environmentalists have urged the government to tear down the building.
However, the Taitung County Government, which gave permission for the build-operate-transfer development project, told the Ministry of Interior on Monday that the court had found the first construction permit in 2005 invalid, adding that since another permit was granted in 2008 for a larger area and an environmental impact assessment was underway, the hotel was not an illegal construction.
At Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan’s office in Taipei yesterday, Tainan Community University researcher Wu Jen-pang (吳仁邦) said heavy metal contamination tests on soil samples collected from seven sites near the hotel on Oct. 4 showed that three of the samples contained chromium concentrations exceeding the soil quality standard of 250 parts per million (ppm).
Wu said he suspects the chromium comes from the hotel construction and may have been the result of the illegal mixing of bottom ashes or industrial waste with cement. Wu added he is “concerned that the heavy metal contaminated soil will negatively affect visitors’ health.”
“Since 2009, our investigations have shown that many coral reefs have been contaminated with dirt and sand. We are now even more concerned that they may be contaminated by the heavy metal substances found in the soil samples,” said the director of Taiwan Environmental Info Association’s Environmental Trust Center, Sun Hsiu-ju (孫秀如).
Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳), director of Citizen’s Hualien and Taitung offices, said the hotel had violated the law many times during its construction and damaged the surrounding environment so the government should tear it down.
In response, Miramar’s Development Department section head Lin Hong-che (林弘哲) provided a test report as evidence that the soil was not contaminated and said the company had commissioned Cheng Shiu University — whose lab is approved by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) — to conduct soil quality examinations in June.
During the press conference, Wu said the test results provided by Miramar were derived using the elution method, in which the soil samples are dissolved in an acidic solution before testing, often resulting in inaccurate readings. Wu added that Miramar should instead use total concentration analysis to provide more accurate test results.
Miramar then issued a press release in the evening saying that their test results had indeed been derived using total concentration analysis.
The EPA has also sent an inspection team to collect samples.
‘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 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
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