The Hualien County Environmental Protection Bureau yesterday sampled wastewater from an outflow pipe at Chung Hwa Pulp Corp’s Hualien paper mill, after receiving complaints from residents that the facility discharged substandard wastewater into the Hualien River (花蓮溪), turning it into a tawny color.
Bureau officials took four samples which are to be tested for apparent color, suspended solids concentration, chemical oxygen demand and conductivity by laboratories certified by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). The results are expected to be released in two weeks.
Aside from the turbid outflow, residents also cited a “rancid” smell, allegedly coming from the facility’s chimneys.
Chung Hwa Pulp senior specialist Yen Shih-hsiung (顏世雄) said the brownish-yellow substance that colored the river is lignin, a product dissolved from wood chips when making pulp.
He said that although wastewater from the facility is properly processed and bleached before it is discharged, it is impossible to remove lignin completely.
He denied allegations that the plant dumped substandard wastewater over the holiday period, saying that the site’s outflow is properly treated and bleached, with monitoring data to prove it.
Bureau Director-General Jao Chung (饒忠) said that residents had often complained that the firm had dumped illegal discharge during holidays or early morning to avoid scrutiny.
However, since a wastewater monitoring system was installed by the paper mill in December last year, the bureau has not found any abnormalities in the facility’s effluent, he said.
Measurements taken at the outflow pipe, updated every two hours, found the quality of the plant’s effluent to be normal over the holiday period, and results of relative accuracy test audits — which Chung Hwa Pulp administered on an EPA order, to control measurement accuracy within an acceptable margin of error — have indicated that all of the plant’s discharge conforms to EPA standards, Jao said.
He said that rivers across the nation are in their low-flow period, which might have caused wastewater discharge from the plant to look darker, as there is less water in the river to dilute it.
Under the Water Pollution Control Act (水汙染防治法), the apparent color of industrial wastewater cannot exceed 550, based on an index. The outflow from the facility ranges between 350 and 450, Jao said.
On the alleged air pollution caused by the facility, he said that the bureau has been in talks with the company over installing an emissions monitoring system inside its chimneys.
‘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
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
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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
RSS