Environmental activists criticize lax laws ENSURE RIGHTS: Environmentalists say it is imperative that the government revis e certain laws in order to guarantee the public is protected against harmful pr ojects By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER Monday, Sep 29, 2003,Page 2 "It's time for us to emulate European people, such as the Germans, who voted to shut down operational nuclear power plants." Eugene Jao, DPP Legislator Recent discussions pertaining to legislation surrounding the nation's first ref erendum law have prompted environmentalists to urge the government to have lax laws revised in order to ensure people's environmental rights. One of the most controversial laws criticized by activists for its failure to p revent foreseeable environmental deterioration is the Environmental Impact Asse ssment Act (EIA Act, 環境影響評估法). The lack of public participation and acce ss to information provisions have been attributed to protests emerging in an en dless stream, activists said. The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) came under fire last week aft er its head, Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), suggested that a public development project , whose EIA had already been passed, should be exempted from the application of a proposed referendum law currently drafted by the Cabinet. Hau was immediately bashed by both legislators and environmentalists. Democrati c Progressive Party (DPP) Legislators on Thursday pointed out that Hau, the onl y Cabinet-level agency chief with pan-blue leanings, was expressing a view oppo sing the DPP-dominant Cabinet. According to Hau, the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant should be completed anyway, because its EIA had been passed in the early 1990s. DPP Legislator Eugene Jao (趙永清) said the construction of the plant needed to be inspected for environmental impact. "In the last few years, we've seen the loss of sand on the beach near the plant 's wharf. Why was the problem not addressed by the EIA committee?" Jao asked. In addition, Jao said the capacity for each power-generating unit has been boos ted to 1,350 megawatt from 1,000 megawatt by its builder, Taiwan Power Company (Taipower), which did not redo an EIA. "It's time for us to emulate European people, such as the Germans, who voted to shut down operational nuclear power plants," Jao said. The EIA system was first utilized by the US in the early 1970s. It soon influen ced advanced countries in Europe, as well as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Japan. Developing countries in Asia did not begin to promote the EIA system un til the 1980s. In Taiwan, after spending a decade preparing a draft for the leg islature, the government enacted the EIA Act at the end of 1994. "It's quite sad that the lax law helps process controversial development projec ts pertaining to industrial complexes, reservoirs and others," said Eric Liou ( 劉銘龍), secretary-general of the Taipei-based Environmental Quality Protection Foundation. Liou said that other examples illustrating sloppy EIAs include two conflicting national projects -- Tainan Science Park and the nation's first high-speed rail road. The National Science Council (NSC) selected Tainan as the site for Taiwan's sec ond science park in 1994, two years after the Ministry of Transportation and Co mmunications had designated a route for the rail project running through the si te. Both EIAs gave project proponents the green light. To date, vibrations caus ed by the passage of bullet trains remain a minus in the park's attraction to h igh-tech firms. The invitation for bids for construction pertaining to vibratio n reduction will be completed in March next year. In addition, activists said that the lax law gave dishonest developers space to dodge their responsibilities. Chen Jian-zhi (陳建志), director of the waste policy committee of the Green Cit izens' Action Alliance, said scoping out regulations for diverse development pr ojects become tools used by project proponents to avoid processing EIAs. For example, Chen said, the EIA Act designates that it is not necessary for a p roject constructing a waste incinerator on less than five hectares of land to h ave an assessment completed. "That's why residents in Taoyuan have no alternative but to accept the establis hment of a large incinerator, with a daily capacity of 1,350 metric tonnes of w aste, on a site covering only three hectares of land. This is just one of many similar cases in Taiwan," Chen said. Green Formosa Front chairman Wu Tung-jye (吳東傑) said the government's credibi lity had been seriously damaged by assessment committees, whose members were em powered to approve projects, but not asked to shoulder any responsibility if en vironmental problems emerged later. "The EIA system will never gain people's trust if public participation remains unavailable," Wu said. According to the EIA Act, public hearings only have to be held after the approv al of the first phase of the assessment, which gives developers the green light . Agency officials stressed that the fundamental spirit of the EIA Act is to prev ent and mitigate adverse impacts of development activities so as to attain the goal of environmental protection. "We know the importance of public involvement. But, under economic pressure, th e EIA Act is often blamed by developers for the long process of having assessme nts completed," said Tung Te-po (董德波), director general of the EPA's Departm ent of Planning. Tung said the agency would consider having the law revised by allowing the publ ic to express their opinions before conducting the assessment. Shih Shin-min (施信民) of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union said that, before revising the act, establishing a legal basis of public referendums for p eople to challenge questionable policies or environment-unfriendly projects wou ld be an effective way to ensure satisfactory public involvement. "The more democracy we have, the better the environment will be protected," Shi h said. --

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