Taiwan Docs

Wang Yung-ching's Formosa Plastics is in Chichin, and Formosa Chemical is in Changhua. In both places they have repeatedly offered guarantees to the residents that everything would be in conformance with national standards. The national standards that they spoke of meant drinking water containing 0.5ppm cadmium, where the carp in the water would go belly up in 16 minutes or less, or the mercury-laden waste earth covered with a layer of sod that lined the roads in all of Chichin. As for the fishing and hatchery trades in Chichin, the water of the streams and even the underground water were poisoned by waste waster. And the water used by the farmers? Their fields were not being irrigated by the streams, but rather poisoned. Before all of this happened, when Formosa Plastics bought the land, they said that the farmers would be allowed to work in the factory, and the result is that they went in to slavery, but unable to stand it, came out again. But there was now no land, and the fruit they planted could not survive. In Changhua they placed their refuse atop Tsaotzupu on Pakua Mountain, and dumped their 40￠J waste water in the Tatu River. How could the water life be able to take it? The bubbles floating on the Tatu River are like a pile of clouds, floating at the outlet of every discharge pipe, acidic to the nose. Day after day the ocean's color changed, putting the livelihoods of the Changhua people under a cloud. In 1989 Formosa Chemical's Ilan Plant began letting off black smoke after dark. It was so bad that bikers on the road could not make the road out. Windows could not be opened. They made it so a person could not live. Unable to resolve these problems, Formosa Plastic wants to build the number six naphtha cracking plant. Director Yu, Chien-yu hails from Yilan, and both times Formosa Plastics tried to set up a factory there, he used his images as his declaration that Kaohsiung is against the fifth naphtha cracker, and Yilan is against the sixth.

Source: Taiwan International Documentary Festival