The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) on Wednesday rejected for a second time Tainan’s bid to build a green energy industrial park, citing concerns over the loss of habitat for protected bird species and flooding risks.
The Tainan City Government can revise the plan and submit it again for review.
The proposed green industrial park is to be built in the city’s Rende District (仁德) close to the High-Speed Rail Tainan Station, Sun Yat-sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1), Provincial Highway No. 86 and Shalun Smart Green Energy City, the municipal government said.
Photo: Chen Chia-yi, Taipei Times
After the first proposal was rejected, the city reduced the planned industrial park area from 87.7 hectares to 64.6 hectares, excluding a local flood control channel from the construction, it said.
However, the revised plan was not approved by the environmental impact panel, which said it would require relocating nearly 2,000 trees from a 36-hectare forest owned by Taiwan Sugar Corp, the EPA said.
A survey of the proposed industrial park area identified 10 protected avian species that dwell in the forest, including five raptor species, it said.
The loss of habit would be a major blow to the environment and the municipal government did not offer sufficient measures to mitigate or compensate the damage the project would cause, it said.
In addition, the panel was not satisfied with the water-carrying capacity of the park’s detention basin, which could increase the risk of flooding in the surrounding area, the EPA said.
The municipal government must re-evaluate the capacity of the basin and provide cross-section topographical charts to clarify the likely direction of surface runoff in and around the park, it said.
When asked about the EPA’s decision, City Forest Association, Taiwan chairman Chuang Chieh-jen (莊傑任) said the construction would have destroyed a multilayered canopy forest and endangered trees.
The nation’s track record for transplanting trees is less than stellar and mortality rates have been high for projects in the past decade, he said, citing the botched transplant of 10,000 trees by developers of Kahosiung’s Renwu industrial park in 2020.
The forest that the project would displace is irreplaceable for Tainan and the municipal authorities should look for alternative sites for the project, Chuang said.
Local farm owner Hsu Tsu-shan (徐紫珊) said she was concerned about the construction of yet another industrial park in the area, which would border her land on three sides.
An increasing industrial presence could negatively affect the certification of agricultural products from the region, she added.
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