Groups urge stopping work on LNG terminal breakwater

• By Esme Yeh / Staff reporter

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Environmental advocates yesterday protested in front of CPC Corp, Taiwan’s Taipei headquarters, calling on the firm to terminate its construction on the third liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal’s south breakwater and to restore damaged algal reefs.

They also called on the Taoyuan City Government to establish a protection zone for local algal reefs.

The LNG terminal in Datan Borough (大潭) of Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) is near Taiwan’s largest shallow-water algal reef system, which has an estimated history of more than 7,000 years.

Civic groups protest continued construction of a liquefied natural gas terminal breakwater in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District outside CPC Corp, Taiwan’s Taipei headquarters yesterday.

Photo: CNA

The reefs are home to various aquatic wildlife, including the Polycyathus chaishanensis, an endangered wildlife of stony coral species. Its biggest population nationwide is in the Datan algal reef system.

Residents in 2018 filed an administrative lawsuit with the Taipei High Administrative Court to revoke CPC’s coastal use permit for the Guantang Industrial Park (觀塘工業區), where the LNG terminal is located.

They lost the lawsuit and appealed.

The Executive Yuan in 2021 approved a plan to relocate the LNG terminal’s construction site further offshore by 455m to help preserve the algal reef ecosystem.

Environmentalists launched a referendum the same year with the goal of relocating the project away from the region, but it failed.

The LNG terminal officially came into operation in November last year.

On Aug. 20, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled in favor of the residents and revoked the Ministry of the Interior’s approval of the CPC’s coastal use permit for the project, as the permit was approved without a review of the project’s potential ecological impact and ecological compensation plan.

CPC on the same day said it would prepare the documents to correct procedural issues.

Rescue Datan’s Algal Reefs Alliance convener Pan Chong-cheng (潘忠政) yesterday said algal reef indicator species such as Kulkarni hermit crabs sharply decreased since the project’s construction in 2019.

The figures presented in the project’s environmental impact review assessment report on Oct. 26, 2017, were not true, he said.

“They claimed the coverage rate of crustose coralline algae in the project’s G1 and G2 zones were too low at 0.04 percent ... but data from 2019 showed that crustose coralline algae in Datan algal reefs had a coverage rate of more than 70 percent,” Pan said.

Crustose coralline algae is a reef-building organism that helps form algal reefs.

Pan also expressed concern that ooze seemed to continue to build up in the intertidal zone where the algal reefs are, even though the LNG terminal had been relocated further offshore.

CPC and the Ministry of Economic Affairs said the local eco-environment improved, but the pink, reef-building crustose coralline algae have been largely replaced with green, common sea lettuce, he said.

Pan urged the ministry and the CPC to promptly restore the algal reef ecosystem and apologize if they covered up the truth.

He also urged the termination of the project’s south breakwater and quick removal of temporary caissons, which he said have been disrupting seafloor sediments and adding ooze to algal reefs.

CPC said it continues to monitor the Datan algal reef ecosystem, as well as local coverage of crustose coralline algae and endangered Polycyathus chaishanensis.

The LNG terminal’s south breakwater aims to protect against seasonal southwest swells and typhoons, it said.

The south breakwater is necessary, as it would allow LNG carriers to berth and better protect on-site personnel, CPC said, adding that it would complete the breakwater’s construction as soon as possible.