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by Chiu YU-TZU, Taipei Times

TAIPEI, Taiwan, 17 September 1999 - The Formosa Plastic Group (FPG) received approval from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday to import its mercury-tainted waste, rejected by Cambodia last December and currently held in temporary storage at Kaohsiung Port.

FPG's proposal to store the waste at a factory compound in Kaohsiung County has angered local residents and local governments.

According to the EPA, the PFG asked for approval to store the controversial waste temporarily at a site in Jenwu, Kaohsiung County. The waste would eventually be moved to either another company-owned compound in Mailiao, Yunlin County or shipped to a foreign country.

EPA officials said yesterday the required import approval document has been issued, and the transfer of the waste would begin by next Monday, the deadline for the waste to leave port.

EPA officials added that during the period of the storage in Jenwu, FPG would re-treat the mercury-contaminated waste by adding cement concrete to stabilize it.

Local residents and the local government in Kaohsiung hit back at the proposal yesterday.

"More stabilization required? Does this mean the previous stabilization of the waste when it was shipped to Cambodia was insufficient? I don't think we Kaohsiung residents should take the waste, especially as people never been given a chance to know its composition," said Yang Pin-yu, the secretary general of the Chai-shan Protection Association, an local green group in Kaohsiung.

"I can't believe that the EPA would issued a controversial waste import approval document like this. It seems that we Kaohsiung residents have been betrayed by the EPA at the central government level. They have completely ignored public opinion here," said Ting Shan-lung, director of the department of environmental protection of Kaohsiung County Government.

Ting said, after several months of communication with the EPA, he was eventually notified on Wednesday (September 15) that the waste would be transferred to a FPG's site in Kaohsiung County without receiving any approval from local government, under the revised Article 49 of the Waste Disposal Act.

"I was disappointed by the outcome because we have presented the EPA official documents on four occasions indicating our opposition since April," added Ting.

Officials from FPG's Jenwu corporate site, led by manager Li Hsien-ching, visited the Kaohsiung County Government yesterday afternoon to notify government officials the waste would be imported. Ting expressed the strong opposition of the commissioner of Kaohsiung County Government Yu Cheng-hsien, now in South Korea for on an official visit. Ting warned FPG to be prepared for local demonstrations as he had heard that local people would block the shipment route.

"In order to calm local opposition, we will supervise the process of the waste shipment when trucks pass through Kaohsiung City," said Cheng Ching-shan, an official at Kaohsiung City Government's environmental protection department.

The waste in question has been at the center of a controversy since it was discovered in Cambodia last December after being dumped illegally by a local waste handler Jing-fu Corp., under contract to FPG.

Cambodia residents near the dumping site rioted when they found out that the materials were toxic. Five people were killed as more than 10,000 fled the area.

FPG officials said people should not worry about the waste because an analysis of it by a US-based laboratory had shown the waste was non-hazardous.