An amendment to the standards used in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of a development project drew a mixed reaction at a public hearing yesterday, with environmental activists saying that the amendment has been designed to solve controversial cases.
The amendment being proposed by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) would allow developers to build roads, residential communities, hotels, recreational parks or factories that could cause pollution in water catchment areas near reservoirs.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉), officials from the Greater Tainan Government and representatives from the gravel industry all supported the amendment, saying that the catchment areas near reservoirs are too big. It would hurt the economy if no development in this massive area is allowed, they said.
However, environmental activists strongly opposed the amendment.
Wu Li-huei (吳麗慧), a representative of the Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union (TWRPU), asked whether the amendment was meant to offer an easy way out for several controversial development cases, such as the Miramar Resort Hotel (美麗灣渡假村) project.
TWRPU director Jennifer Nien (粘麗玉) said the amendment would open the way for development projects to take place in the high mountains, on farm land, wet lands, national parks and wildlife protection zones without the scrutiny of an EIA committee.
Currently, the nation has 96 reservoirs with more than 100,000 hectares of catchment area. For years, local governments and legislators from Greater Tainan, Yunlin and Chiayi have tried to persuade the EPA to relax the regulations on the use of such land.
Because of the pressure, the EPA decided to hold a public hearing to listen to the opinions of different parties.
Should the amendment be passed, any construction project involving a development area of less than 500m2 or accumulative area of less 2,500m2 would be able to proceed without having to conduct an environmental impact assessment.
Environmental groups opposed to the amendment said it would damage the water quality in the nation’s reservoirs.
Aside from the changes to the regulations in reservoir catchment areas, the amendment would also relax urban renewal regulations for old communities.
While some supported that amendment, they said that the lack of an EIA review would generate more disputes of the rights to properties.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS