MOEA awaits environmental impact assessment to decide change of site for petrochemical park

01-Nov-10

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) awaits the final result of an environmental impact assessment before deciding whether to change the site of the controversial Kuokuang Petrochemical Park – Taiwan’s eighth naphtha cracker on a plot of tidal land in Changhua's Dacheng area. Environmentalists have expressed strong opposition to the plan, arguing that the facility would cause irreversible damage to local flora and fauna, endanger marine life, and ultimately threaten the livelihoods of local farmers and fishermen. The site for the proposed park has been changed several times- the location was last shifted from Yunlin County to Changhua County. The MOEA had also considered Pingtung and Kaohsiung counties as a possible site.