OT:EPA accused of `stalling tactics' during protest

[Guest guest]

I posted this to show that what we are experiencing here from

federal agencies is also happening in other countries as well.

Sharon

EPA accused of `stalling tactics' during protest

FED UP: An Environmental Impact Assessment Committee member and

other former members claimed important cases are intentionally

ignored

Taipei Times - Taiwan*

By Oung

STAFF REPORTER

Friday, Jul 20, 2007,

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/07/20/2003370395

Alleging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deliberately kept

important cases off the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee's

(EIAC) agenda, a member of the committee protested outside the

agency yesterday rather than attend the committee's last meeting.

Gloria Hsu (™Œõ—u), Taiwan Environmental Protection Union chairwoman,

said the EPA's " stalling tactics " means that environmental damaging

construction projects likely to be rejected by committee could be

approved by the next committee, whose members have yet to be

convened.

Each EIAC has a two-year tenure, after which a new committee is

selected by the head of the EPA.

" What is the point of attending the meeting? " Hsu said.

" Only five insignificant cases are discussed while many important

cases that should have been brought before the committee

languished, " she said.

She was joined by former committee member Chan (û¥‡‹M) and a

crowd of protesters. Chan resigned from the committee last month in

protest.

Both Hsu and Chan tied pieces of red fabric bearing the

words " Environmental assessment is already dead, " around their

forehead.

Hsu accused the EPA of avoiding placing cases such as Formosa

Plastic Groups' steelworks, the conjunctive utilization plan of

Surface water and groundwater in the Chuoshui River alluvial fan and

others before the current committee.

" They want to drag these cases out so that they will not go before

this committee, " Hsu said.

" I heard that our committee has been dubbed `the obstacle

committee,' " he said.

" Are they delaying important cases from coming before the committee

until it reconvenes with more business-friendly members? " Hsu

said, " Why else are the keeping important cases from being heard? "

Also at the protest was the secretary-general of the TEPU, Ho Tsung-

hsun (‰½@™¬).

" The EPA is derelict in its duty to protect the environment in

Taiwan, " Ho said, describing the agency as a " soft-legged shrimp " in

the case of the sixth naphtha plant.

The agency previously meted out fines in March that was subsequently

revoked by the Executive Yuan, Ho said.

At yesterday's press conference, EPA Deputy Director Chang Tzi-chin

('£ŽqŒh) said the tenure of the current committee was about to end,

meaning that there would not be enough time for the case of the

sixth naphtha plant to come before it. However, Chang said the new

limits will not necessarily be the 351,000 ton limit approved by the

Industrial Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

" It is up to the new committee, yet to be convened, to decide what

the upper limit of water use could be for the sixth naphtha plant, "

Chang said.

Although fellow committee member Robin Winkler did not join Hsu's

protest and attended the yesterday's meeting, he did offer a show of

solidarity.

Coming down from the 13th floor where the meeting took place,

Winkler ripped up a copy of the Basic Environmental Act (ŠÂ‹«Šî–{–@) and

shouted " Environmental assessment is dead. "