The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) held a meeting on Oct 5th, 2011 to review the analysis report of differential impact on environment submitted by the sixth and seventh stages of the fourth-phase expansion project of the Formosa Plastics Group’s sixth naphtha cracker complex in Mailiao, Yunlin County (Project). The residents in Mailiao and environmental NGOs contended that a full EIA procedure, instead of an analysis of differential impact on environment, should be applied to the Project.

     The residents and environmental NGO’s claim were based on two reasons. First, the residents questioned that the Project is merely a disguise of the fifth-phase construction. The sixth stage includes the establishment of a polycrystalline silicon (P-Si) plant, which is included as a part the fifth-phase construction according to the environment impact statement of the fifth-phase construction. Therefore, the residents doubted that the developers and the EPA intentionally set aside the stricter EIA rules and procedures by judging the Project as only modification and expansion to the original plant.  

     Environmental groups also pointed out that the increase of greenhouse gas emission in this Project would be 1,33 million tons, far more than the carbon reduction of the sixth naphtha cracker complex during the past ten years and equaling to one tenth of the KuoKuang Petrochemical Project. Even the Project is judged as modification, the scale of the environmental impact caused by the Project requires a full EIA process applied to the modification part according to Article 38 of the EIA Enforcement Rules.

     The meeting concluded that whether the Project should go through a full EIA process needed to be evaluated at the next meetings. The key point will be whether the P-Si plant is an expansion or a new construction and whether the Project is significantly adverse to the environment.