Representatives of the Greater Taichung Administration Monitoring Alliance yesterday accused the local government of trying to conceal the truth about groundwater pollution near the shuttered Shuinan Airport (水湳機場) in Greater Taichung.
“Delinquent mayor should be severely punished by the Control Yuan,” alliance members chanted during the protest in front of the Control Yuan.
The group said that tests of the soil at the airport, which was shut down in 2004, showed that it was contaminated with heavy metals and electrical insulating oil. The protesters accused the local government of trying to hide the truth from people living near the area because of its plans to turn the old airport into the site of its Taichung Gateway Park City project — which will include a dome, an exhibition and convention center, and a college town.
Photo: CNA
Alliance member Gan Chen-yi (甘宸宜) said the state of pollution at the airport was contained in a report by the local environmental protection agency last year, which said the contaminated area spanned 7,648m2 and was about 5m in depth.
She said the group suspected the Greater Taichung Government knew about the pollution even earlier, as the report by the local agency was a re-inspection of the site and cited data from another report on the state of contamination done by the Environmental Protection Administration in 2009.
The alliance accused the municipal government of hiding the conditions at the airport from Greater Taichung Council so councilors would approve the Taichung Gateway Park City’s development budget for last year and this year.
When councilors questioned Greater Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) about the case this month, Gan said Hu replied that he only found out about the pollution two or three weeks before.
The alliance added that the groundwater at the Han Xiang Aerospace Industrial Development Corp’s factory, located right next to Shuinan Airport’s runway, was verified to be contaminated by trichloroethylene — a toxic chemical compound.
“We suspect that all the groundwater in the nearby area could be contaminated, despite the [environmental protection] agency’s statement that only the water at the factory site and the soil at the airport are contaminated,” Taiwan Academy of Ecology secretary-general Tsai Chih-hao (蔡智豪) said.
According to the agency’s report for the city council in June, the trichloroethylene level in the groundwater at Situn Elementary School located near the airport reached 0.029mg/L — higher than the standards set for drinking water at 0.005mg/L. The agency notified the elementary school not to drink the water and to guard against exposure to the groundwater.
The protesters called on the municipal government “to honestly tell the public how long they have known about the pollution and how much the nearby residents have been affected by the polluted water.”
“If harm has been done to the residents, then the government should apologize and resolve the problem,” Tsai said.
SEND A MESSAGE: Sinking the amphibious assault ship, the lead warship of its class, is meant to show China the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, an analyst said The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release. The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike
A new message broadcast on the Taipei MRT’s Wenhu (Brown) Line urging passengers to yield their seats to those in need, not necessarily elderly people, would be extended to other MRT lines and public transportation in the capital, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday. Chiang was responding to reporters’ questions on the sidelines of a news conference at Taipei City Hall promoting healthy walking. Several disputes over priority seats on public transportation have recently been reported, sparking debate about who qualifies to sit in them, as most of the cases involved elderly people asking young people to give up their
The airspace around Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) is to be closed for an hour on July 25 and July 23 respectively, due to the Han Kuang military exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. The annual exercise is to be held on Taiwan proper and its outlying islands from July 22 to 26. During last year’s exercise, the military conducted anti-aircraft landing drills at the Taoyuan airport for the first time, for which a one-hour no-fly ban was issued. Based on a live-fire bulletin sent out by the Maritime and Port Bureau, the nation’s
URBAN HEAT: The average temperature in Wanhua District tends to be higher because it is a low-lying area, while Xinyi District is hotter because of overdevelopment, experts say Heat in the nation’s metropolitan areas is becoming increasingly difficult to dissipate due to climate change and increases in areas experiencing urban heat effects, a study conducted by National Cheng Kung University’s Building and Climate Lab (BCLab) showed. The lab used weather data collected on Saturday last week and created a temperature map, which showed high-temperature areas in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan have expanded and could soon be connected to each other. The phenomenon is similar to a 60km-long corridor near Tokyo experiencing urban heat effects, the study showed. The lab’s temperature map showed that Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), which