Kaohsiung's promise to clear away furnace slag falls through? Qishan waste not cleared, Daliao left waiting seven years

More than a million tonnes of China Steel converter slag and unidentified waste were buried by people on farmland in Dalin Village, Qishan District, Kaohsiung City, and nearly seven years have passed since. Last month (March) 26, the Kaohsiung City Environmental Protection Bureau finally took a key first step, joining with one of the companies that originally buried the waste, Wandah Material Technology Company, to publicly promise: "We absolutely will not clear away only the converter slag. Even if we dig down today and find more than 990,000 tonnes, we will still clear everything out."

Two weeks later, on the morning of April 8 at ten o'clock, Wandah carried out its first clearing operation. The moment the excavator started up, Zheng Miaozhen, chairwoman of the Dalin Village Anti-Furnace Slag Self-Help Association, said emotionally: "We have waited and waited, and finally we have seen that first shovel taken away!" Yet after supervising the work on site for one hour, Zheng Miaozhen's dream shattered.

She discovered that Wandah did not intend to haul away all the waste, and was willing only to transport the converter slag to the Dafa Industrial Zone in Daliao for temporary storage. She said bitterly, "They only haul away the converter slag and leave the other unidentified waste in the main backfill area. We came today to endorse the Environmental Protection Bureau - endorse what? Endorse a slap in the face, endorse a lie."

Kaohsiung City Councilor Qiu Yuxuan, who received an urgent petition from residents, also rushed to the excavation site in Dalin Village on the afternoon of the 8th and demanded an immediate halt to the work. She said: "I want to defend my constituency. I don't want secondary pollution, because I don't know what the company will transport to Daliao."

The Dalin farmland has a wretched history: unscrupulous operators used converter slag under the name of a "product" to smuggle in and bury unidentified waste

The farmland at the center of the controversy lies in the Dalin section of Qishan, within the water quality and water quantity protection area of the upper Gaoping River. The soil is fertile and the water clean, yet it has a wretched history. This farmland was first illegally mined for sand and gravel in 1996, leaving pits of various sizes covering a total area of 5.2 to 7 hectares and more than 20 m deep. Then in May 2013, unscrupulous operators buried 990,000 tonnes of China Steel converter slag and an incalculable quantity of unidentified waste there.

Converter slag is a by-product produced when China Steel Corporation makes steel. China Steel Global Resources is a China Steel subsidiary responsible for using converter slag in road construction, marine or civil engineering. However, China Steel Global Resources did not sell these 990,000 tonnes of converter slag as a "product". Instead, it sold them to Wandah at the low price of 5 yuan per tonne and also subsidised the removal cost at 220 yuan per tonne. Wandah in turn sold them to Jianfa Company (which is also the landowner) at 5 yuan per tonne, with a removal subsidy of 40 to 45 yuan per tonne.

Zheng Miaozhen, chairwoman of the Dalin Village Anti-Waste Furnace Slag Self-Help Association, said that what the operators buried at the time was not only China Steel converter slag, because converter slag has the name of a "product" and can lawfully cover up the unlawful, which gave the operators the chance to smuggle in other unidentified waste. Wang Zhongyi, chairman of the Zunhuai Culture and Education Foundation, said: "On paper it says 990,000 tonnes, but there is even more other unidentified or toxic waste in the farmland."

The Environmental Protection Bureau approved the operator's clearance plan, promising to complete the clearance within three years, but excavation revealed difficulties at every turn

After nearly seven years of monitoring, reporting, petitioning and protesting, and with the cooperation of the Dalin Village Anti-Waste Furnace Slag Self-Help Association, the Zunhuai Culture and Education Foundation, the Tainan Community University and the Citizens of the Earth Foundation, the Dalin farmland finally showed signs of life.

On March 26, 2020, the Kaohsiung City Environmental Protection Bureau, together with one of the operators, Wandah, held a briefing and publicly promised to complete the clearance within three years. On April 8, Wandah chose the spot at Dalin section, plot No. 512, on the access road where trucks had previously carried converter slag, to carry out the first excavation.

The people of Qishan had waited a long time for this day! Zheng Miaozhen, chairwoman of the Dalin Village Anti-Waste Furnace Slag Self-Help Association, said in a joint media interview: "I am very moved, but I can only be happy for a second, because the monitoring over the following three years is what matters most." But Zheng Miaozhen never imagined that she really would be happy for only one second!

While supervising the work, Zheng Miaozhen discovered that Wandah was not following the Environmental Protection Bureau's promise made at the briefing that day to haul away all the waste. It was willing only to excavate and test, and then, for converter slag whose test results were acceptable, transport it to the Dafa Industrial Zone in Daliao for temporary storage.

Zheng Miaozhen poured out her grievances to the Environmental Protection Bureau staff on site: "At that briefing that day, the deputy director vowed that everything would be dug out clean, and we endorsed it happily, and the city councilor endorsed it happily too. You let Wandah (the company) handle only the converter slag and leave the unidentified waste to the responsible party (Jianfa Company). Don't you know that this is just like before, leaving residents to face the problem themselves? How afraid we are!"

The Environmental Protection Bureau staff tried to reassure Zheng Miaozhen: "Look at it another way - at least the clearing has begun. We have also taken the lawsuit to the Supreme Court and are fighting (the case) with them (Jianfa Company)! Alas! What worries us is whether we can even get in over at Daliao. That is still a question!"