Citizen Writer | Furnace slag is pollution, not a product! In the Qishan Dalin furnace slag case ruling, the Kaohsiung City Government lost and must order the operator to remove it within a deadline.
Background: Some unscrupulous operators and material dealers that buy up industrial waste first rent farmland, then dig deep into the farmland and sell off the soil and rock, then backfill the farmland with China Steel waste furnace slag and level the topsoil, and finally sublet the "fake farmland" out again, polluting the farmland. Four years ago, a 4-hectare plot of farmland in the Yuan Tan water quality and quantity protection area in Dalin Village, Kaohsiung, China was found to have been dug deep and backfilled with more than 300,000 tonnes of waste furnace slag by unscrupulous operators, killing aquatic life in nearby ponds and filling the air with a pungent, foul smell.
There are more than a hundred farming households in the area, covering nearly 6 jia of land, most of them growing bananas and fruit trees for a living. Some farmers reported that breathing this pungent air causes heart palpitations, dizziness and nausea, and that the groundwater they pump up has a "sticky feeling" and is completely unusable. "The most frightening thing is that when it rained last August, the water that seeped out was all a "milky color" - there is no way we can farm or drink this." When local residents tried to seek redress on their own and went to gather evidence, they were even beaten and hospitalised for a whole month.
To protect their own homes, residents appealed and protested everywhere, but the situation was never improved. In the end, the High Administrative Court finally ruled that the Kaohsiung City Government must, in accordance with the Waste Disposal Act, order the operator Jianfa Construction Co., Ltd. to remove the furnace slag it had buried. Below is yesterday's on-site report.
