Gov't must act on FPG blaze: protestors

Speaking at a public hearing organized by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to discuss the fire at the Mailiao refinery complex, in Yunlin, Su said that central government has supervisory responsibilities, but the local government cannot effectively enforce environmental laws at the complex.

She said that pollution, caused by two fires at the complex in less then a month, dealt a serious blow to farms and fisheries in the area. The complex also left the people of Yunlin with an average carbon footprint seven times that of other residents of the country.

She highlighted regulation problems including the lax punishments given out by the current regulations, lack of powers at local government level to enforce environmental laws, and the serious shortage of manpower and funding in environmental agencies.

Previous environmental evaluations at the complex were nothing more than glorified “health checks,” she added.

She also suggested Premier Wu Den-yih should visit Yunlin County to help him better understand the safety issues related to the naphtha cracking plant complex.

To make her point, protesters from the Mailiao Township brought to the hearing dead clams and fish they said were casualties of the fire. According to the leader of the protest group, Lin Fu-tien, 160,000 fish and 2,000 ducks were killed by the fallout, but he claimed government officials have failed to ask them about their situation.

The local government will not shy away from its responsibility of dealing with the aftermath of the FPG fire, but it does not have the legal arsenal needed to take on the complex, Su stressed.

The magistrate compared the 1,881 oil tanks in the petrochemical complex to “powerful bombs” that could put the county's residents at risk.

Chan Chang-chuan, a professor at the Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene at National Taiwan University, also challenged the central government for quickly clearing the FPG of environmental and management responsibilities after the fire.

Chan chastised the Environmental Protection Administration for ruling out the possibility that the fire might have produced toxic chemical fumes on Monday, July 26, the day after the blaze broke out, and claimed they had used inappropriate sampling methods and equipment in the test.

The scholar also questioned how Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) Director-General Woody Duh came to the conclusion that the fire was an isolated incident before proper investigations had begun.

In response, director of EPA's Air Quality Protection and Noise Control Department, Hsieh Yein-rui, said that the agency sent personnel for samples the day the fire started. The EPA will make further announcements after a comprehensive investigation ends in four to five days. IDB deputy director-general Chou Neng-chuan also promised to make adjustments to the bureau's stance in future if necessary.

The premier has said that a service center should be set up at the FPG Mailiao complex to coordinate emergency responses to industrial accidents.

“If an industrial accident occurs, the service center would be able to assess the situation, contact the central and local governments, and launch emergency operations immediately,” he said at a Cabinet meeting.

Such a service center will be established in the near future, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang said.

“This service center in Miaoliao will be different from those that have been established in other industrial zones as it will immediately be turned into an emergency response center in the event of an industrial accident,” said Shih.

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