Environmental groups yesterday challenged a multibillion-dollar expansion of the Formosa Plastics Group’s (FPG) naphtha cracker complex in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮), saying the county government illegally issued emission licenses without a proper review.
The planned NT$11.98 billion (US$366.13 million) project has been frozen since August last year amid a row over air pollution standards.
An environmental impact assessment (EIA) review in Taipei yesterday between the EIA committee, FPG and environmental groups — the fourth such review since August last year — failed to reach a consensus on the plant’s emission quota, leaving the project in limbo.
EIA committee member Lee Yu-ming (李育明) said that a plant run by Formosa Heavy Industries Corp received a higher emission quota than that approved by the EIA committee in 2012, adding that such a thing should not have happened and should never happen again.
Environmental groups said that the Yunlin Environmental Protection Bureau had renewed dozens of emission licenses to different plants in the naphtha cracker complex ahead of their expiration dates, while raising the emission quotas without any EIA review, moves they said were against the law.
“The Yunlin County Government gave operating licenses to plants applying for expansion, but the expansion project has not yet been approved,” Taiwan Water Conservation Alliance spokesperson Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said.
“In March last year, the county government gave an emission quota of 146.88 tonnes of volatile organic compounds [VOCs] per year to a superabsorbent polymers [SAP] plant in the complex, which was allowed only 13 tonnes of VOCs per year by the EIA committee,” Chen said. “That should be looked into by prosecutors or the Control Yuan.”
Producing an emission license for the SAP plant that appeared to conflict with the one presented by FPG, Chen said a particular manufacturing process — E329 — was listed on the license she collected, but not on the one FPG had, adding that the company either neglected or deliberately excluded a polluting source from the permissible emission quota.
The environmental groups called on the EIA committee to stop reviewing the project until all statistics are cleared up and an emission calculation mechanism is established.
However, FPG said the data it provided were accurate and truthful, while the difference between its data and the environmental groups’ numbers must be due to the environmental groups’ miscalculation.
The groups miscalculated because they counted the emission of auxiliary manufacturing processes, such as the E329 process, in addition to the entire permissible emission quota, while all the manufacturing processes of a plant are counted as a whole, FPG said.
Every modification of the manufacturing process requires reapplication of the operating license with the local government, which was why the county government renewed the licenses before they expired, the company said.
Recommending that FPG make its emission calculation method public and have it approved by a third-party, one EIA committee member said that the emission numbers should be easily clarified, but since they were not, a five-party meeting between the company, the Environmental Protection Administration, the EIA committee, the county government and environmental groups should be held.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.