Yilan mountaintop removal mining threatens water source; Zhonghua Village residents: payoffs can't buy our children's future
Text / Upstream and Downstream reporters Lin Jiyang, Lin Yijun
Rural Yilan is far from quiet. Besides the plains with convenient transportation being taken over by luxury farmhouses, recently Yuanshan Township, which is close to the Xueshan water source area, has also faced multiple development crises, including a 34-hectare mountaintop removal mining project in Zhonghua Village that not only severely damages the environment but also affects the entire water safety of Yilan. In the neighboring Neicheng Village, which has preserved its original spring-fed paddy field landscape, besides the impact mining would have on the water source, it also faces a county government-initiated "farmland readjustment" that could bring full-scale development, following in the footsteps of the Lanyang Plain where farmhouses now stand everywhere.
Because Zhonghua and Neicheng villages are located in remote areas, they have developed friendly smallholder farming and distinctive landscape tourism. Facing the encroachment of development forces, they have joined voices to protect the integrity of their settlements. However, in the foreseeable wave of land development, many tenant smallholders may be forced to give up farming, and the friendly farmland they have cultivated will be destroyed overnight.
Upstream and Downstream interviewed both villages about their current situation. This article focuses on Zhonghua Village's struggle against the mining crisis. For Neicheng Village's story, please click here.
Zhonghua Village, with its fine water from Xueshan, faces a 34-hectare mining crisis
Yuanshan Township in Yilan is famous for its abundant, pure water originating from Xueshan. Zhonghua Village sits at the foot of the Xueshan mountains. Its old name was "Cukeng," describing its location upstream of a river where the valley is filled with many piled boulders, aptly indicating that this place is at the apex of an alluvial fan and is an important water source area for the Lanyang Plain.
In the village, two streams, Dingcukeng Creek and Cukeng Creek, converge. Surface water and subsurface flow are abundant. Five kilometers downstream is the Shengou Water Purification Plant, which supplies the north bank of the Lanyang River, serving 170,000 residents and attracting businesses to produce mineral water and whisky here. However, its upstream water source recently became controversial when "Yong'an Industrial" Company planned to apply for mining rights over 134 hectares (34 hectares for a new mining area).
Yong'an Industrial Company began mining porcelain clay in Yuanshan Township, Yilan County, as early as July 1980, with a development area of 134 hectares at the time. The 40-year mining right will expire in June 2020. This year Yong'an Company submitted a new mine application, with extraction items including porcelain clay and silica stone, located in an ecological hotspot spanning 5-6 watersheds, with the sand and gravel transport route passing through the core area of Zhonghua Village.
The company lobbies with gifts and payoffs, creating a "pottery village" vision while actually extracting ore
On September 26, an environmental impact assessment was held for the Yong'an mining project. Residents attending held both supporting and opposing views. Residents who supported mining believed that Yong'an Company had provided student scholarships and elderly nutrition lunches to Zhonghua Village in the past, and that moderate development could bring social resources to the area. Residents who opposed mining believed that noise and dust would seriously affect the environment, quality of life, and water use. They hoped to develop ecological and organic agriculture in the future. This development project risks polluting the water source and damaging soil and water conservation, and they hoped Yong'an Company would respect the rights and interests of local residents.
Wu Weisan, secretary-general of the Zhonghua Village community, admitted frankly that some people in the village had been mobilized by the company to express support for mining, but the company's lobbying at the start was evasive and glossed over key issues, bundling in many development opportunities that mountain village people had been waiting for, giving gifts as payoffs to the community, and using porcelain clay extraction as a theme, paired with the school's wood-fired kiln, to create a vision of a pottery village like Yingge.
Through coaxing and cajoling, residents thought what would be mined was porcelain clay. They never expected that the environmental impact assessment meeting would reveal the truth: what the company would mainly extract was actually "silica earth," a secondary raw material for concrete. After mining begins, 200 trucks of 35 tons each would carry raw materials down from the mountain daily, and during the 36-year mining period, mountaintops would be removed and large roads carved out for trucks to pass. Since the mining company applied for an area of 134 hectares, the operation could last 100 years. It was not until the environmental impact assessment meeting that many residents heard the truth for the first time.
Only at the environmental impact assessment meeting did they learn the development area was so large; residents were shocked to have been deceived
Chen Minghua, chairperson of the Zhonghua Village Community Development Association, admitted frankly that over the past four years the mining company had given gifts during festivals and holidays to win people over. Big enterprises saw that mountain village residents were simple and old-fashioned in character. According to community estimates, over four years the company's payoffs in festival gifts exceeded one million.
In the past, during its porcelain clay mining operations, Yong'an Industrial Company provided local social development resources. In the 107th year of the Republic of China (2018), it provided Zhonghua Village with a total of more than 1,079,000 yuan: more than 252,000 yuan for elderly nutrition lunches, more than 95,000 yuan for Huayu Elementary School scholarships, 330,000 yuan for building a kiln and woodworking classroom subsidies, and more than 401,000 yuan for festival gifts to the whole village.
"How would simple mountain village people have ever seen smooth talk? At first they all believed the pie in the sky the mining company painted." Residents who had never seen an environmental impact assessment report only learned the full picture of the mine at the September 26 environmental impact assessment meeting. The 34-hectare mine development area would seriously affect community water use, children's schooling, and overall life. Discovering how great the mine's impact on the community would be made many residents feel they had been deceived.
A local daughter-in-law: the mountain village guards the water source for Yilan's people; she hopes fellow residents will pay attention
Chen Minghua, chairperson of the Zhonghua Village Community Development Association, is a local daughter-in-law who married into Zhonghua Village from Neiyuanshan. Only after marrying into the mountain village did she learn of the hardships of mountain village life: remote and inconvenient transportation. This is the starting point of Provincial Highway 7 to the Northern Cross-Island Highway and Lishan. Every day gravel trucks, high-mountain vegetable trucks, and tour buses pass through, roaring by, yet very few people are willing to stop for the mountain village.
Zhonghua Village has the highest proportion of elderly population in Yilan. Of the village's 700 residents, more than one quarter are elderly. In particular, most of the young and middle-aged population has left for work elsewhere, leaving mostly the elderly, weak, women, and children in the village. Coupled with scattered settlements, the decline of the mountain village population is hard to conceal.
Chen Minghua said frankly: "I threw myself into community work to find a reason to persuade myself to stay in the mountain village." To make herself stay, Chen Minghua began working on environmental restoration, handmade trails, ecological surveys, and other projects in the community.
Chen Minghua said with emotion: "Zhonghua Village is the water source area of the Lanyang Plain, but Zhonghua Village still has no tap water. I hope the people of Yilan will turn on their faucets and think about it. The people of Zhonghua Village guard the water source for the people of Yilan. I hope fellow Yilan residents will also join in protecting Yilan's water source."
Various parties: suggest the operator re-evaluate the necessity of development and take residents' rights and interests into consideration
Ruan Zhongxin, representative of the Yilan Xixi Alliance and assistant professor in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at National Ilan University, believes that this mine is located in a watershed and would affect not only Yuanshan Township but possibly the entire drinking water safety of Yilan with enormous impact. In particular, slope mining and development of low-mountain secondary forest would damage the watershed. In the national land use plan to be announced by Yilan County, this area is designated as a groundwater recharge area, and any development activity would be strictly controlled. If one wishes to apply for a development project, one should wait until after the announcement to apply.
The Yilan County Environmental Protection Bureau believes that the necessity of development in this case must be reconfirmed, and that road cut-and-fill, soil and water conservation, and possible ecological impacts must be clearly stated. In particular, noise and the impact of development on plant and animal habitats must be re-evaluated. Yuanshan Township Office believes that there are development restrictions in Yilan County's national land use plan, and suggests the operator confirm the regulatory content, otherwise there may be conflicts later. In addition, the consensus of surrounding residents should be respected. Developing low-mountain secondary forest would affect the ecological environment and soil and water conservation. Once extreme climate occurs, surrounding communities could suffer.
