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FEATURE: Nantian
Village divided by nuclear waste store plan
By Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporter
While Tao Aborigines from Lanyu Township (蘭嶼), Taitung County, continue to voice
their opposition to the local nuclear waste storage facility, the residents of
Nantian Village (南田) in the county’s Daren Township (達仁) — and its neighboring
areas — are also engaged in a heated debate over whether the village should
become the home of the next nuclear waste dump.
With rough winds blowing from the northeast, huge waves pounding the coast, a
main road that rarely has any traffic and poorly maintained houses, the small
village of Nantian — located on a narrow strip of flat land between the Pacific
and the Central Mountain Range and on the border of Taitung and Pingtung
counties — looks like a place that’s isolated from the rest of the world.
With a population of only about 300, most people would never have heard of the
village if it had not been chosen by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) in 2010 as one
of two candidate sites — along with Penghu County’s Wangan Township (望安) — for a
permanent nuclear waste storage facility.
Wangan was quickly removed from the candidate list, because the majority of the
population, as well as the county and township governments, immediately
expressed strong opposition. However, for Nantian — a traditional domain of the
Paiwan Aboriginal tribe — the situation was more ambiguous, as voices of both
opposition and support exist.
“The voice of opposition [to building a nuclear waste storage facility in
Nantian] mostly comes from tribal leaders, elders and the church, because they
believe that the land our ancestors passed down to us should be protected and
should not be abused by outsiders,” Nantian village warden Kulele Kavuruan said.
“However, most of the younger generation supports having the storage facility
here, because our village is so lacking in resources that if we don’t get help
from the outside, we will have to abandon the village one day.”
Kavuruan was referring to promises from Taipower that it would provide a total
of NT$5 billion (US$169 million) in compensation, as well welfare measures such
as free lunches for students, if the village lets Taipower build its permanent
nuclear waste storage facility there.
“The huge amount of money could be very helpful to the village economically, and
then it would also help bring some job opportunities to locals,” the village
warden said, adding that he also supports having the storage facility in his
village. “If Taipower could make it really safe, then why not?”
Eyeing the benefits that Taipower’’s money could bring, about 70 percent of
villagers support the plan, while 30 percent object to it, Kavuruan said.
“More people have expressed reservations since the nuclear disaster in
Fukushima, Japan, last year, but the voice of support still wins a upper hand
here,” he said.
The situation in Nantian is different from Lanyu (also known as Orchid Island),
Kavuruan said. Radiation leaked in Lanyu because the nuclear waste barrels were
stored above ground and have rusted because of the strong winds carrying salt
from the ocean, he said.
“But here, Taipower plans to dig tunnels in the mountains and place the barrels
inside the tunnels,” he said. “Besides, Taipower told us that the radiation
would be gone in 20 years.”
In fact, the low radioactive nuclear waste stored in Lanyu -contains Co-60 and
Cs-137, but Kavuruan said he was never told about it and Taipower did not
explain in detail about all the chemical elements the nuclear waste might
contain.
“I have to admit that most of us [villagers] know it would be better if there’s
no nuclear waste in this village, but look around, what resources do we have?
How do we survive?” Kavuruan said. “We don’t expect Taipower’s compensation to
bring prosperity, we’re merely looking at survival.”
He said the villagers had hoped to develop tourism, taking advantage of the
area’s natural scenery, locally produced Nantian marble and traditional Paiwan
handicrafts, “but we’re located at the end of the world. It’s not easy to bring
in visitors.”
Nantian is just 72km from Taitung City, the main city and point of entry for
visitors, but it takes more than two hours to drive to the village, along a
winding, narrow, bumpy road with the ocean on one side and cliffs on the other.
The Taipei Times attempted to interview other residents in the village, but most
of them are elderly and only speak the tribal tongue.
Residents in neighboring Dawu Township (大武), which is only a 10-minute drive
away from Nantian, take a very different view from Nantian villagers.
“This is a beautiful place, we don’t want it to be contaminated with nuclear
waste,” said Lin Ching-chu (林景足), a woman in her 60s who owns a seafood
restaurant in Dawu. “The coastline of Taitung is one of the very few sections in
the country that does not have any factories or industrial pollution. Why do we
want to bring in nuclear waste?”
She said that as a restaurant owner, she is proud to provide fresh fish caught
along the coast by local fishermen.
“Would you eat fish caught near the coast with a nuclear waste store sitting on
it?” she asked.
Lin’s son, Chung Chih-hung (鍾志鴻), a father of two in his 30s, agreed.
“If you look at Lanyu’s example, you would see that most ordinary residents
wouldn’t get any of Taipower’s money, it’s the township officials and political
leaders who would get it,” Chung said. “The people of Lanyu have been deceived
for 30 years, we should learn their lesson.”
“Besides, what right do we have to decide what kind of environment our next
generations should live in?” he added.
Chan Wu-lieh (詹武烈), owner of a photo studio in Dawu, was also strongly opposed
to the nuclear waste storage plan.
“Taiwpower says it’s 100 percent safe, but who could guarantee that? Who would
take the responsibility if something went wrong?” he asked.
Chan said the candidate site is only 4km from Pingtung’s Mudan Reservoir (牡丹水庫),
which supplies fresh water to Pingtung.
If a radioactive leak occurred, “it would have a huge impact on the safety of
the water supply to Pingtung residents,” he said.
According to the Act for Site Selection and the Creation of Permanent Storage
Facilities for Low Radioactive Waste (低輻射廢棄物最終處置場選址設置條例), a county-wide
referendum must be held before a final decision is made on building the nuclear
waste storage facility in Nantian.
The county government has announced a plan to hold the referendum, but the exact
date has yet to be decided.
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