Taiwan Church News 3305 Edition June 29 - July 5, 2015 Church Ministry Wind Turbines Were Opposed By Miaoli's Local People Due To An Insufficient Setback Between Wind Turbines And Homes Reported By Simon Lin A "Citizen Forum", organized by PCT Hsin-chu College Student Center(HCSC),discussing about the abuse of green energy policy on human rights, was held at Yuan-li Presbyterian Church on June 27. The first Citizen Forum, held at Taoyuan Presbyterian Church, was probing into the corruptions of land confiscation within the project of Taoyuan Aerotropolis. Rev. Lee Chih-chen, Director of HCSC, expressed that holding such citizenforum did not at all intend to support any particular political party. The purpose was to respond PCT's confession: "[Church] through love and suffering becoming the sign of hope," and urge more people to care about what happened in our home land. Ms. Chen Huei-ming, spokeswoman of Yuan-li Anti-Wind-Turbine Self-HelpAssociation(YASA), shared her experiences toward wind turbine. In the past, she thought it's good to have wind turbines installed along the beautiful coast-line of Yuan-li. Until InfraWest Wind Power Group came to install their wind turbines, she had never known that Taiwan did not even possess a legal standard to specify the safety setback between wind turbine and inhabitants' home. Within 3 kilometer's coast-line of Yuan-li, local residents were forced toaccept 14 wind turbines with average setback under 200 meters. Not only the environmental assessment was illegally passed in favor of the financial corps., but the decision of such green energy policy was stroke down in black-box, said Chen. According to Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute(ITRI), theglobal standard of the safety setback between wind turbine and home is specified at 1,500 meters, but Taiwan's Bureau of Energy under Ministry of Economic Affairs only suggested 250 meters' safety setback for wind turbine installation, said Chen. Within such insufficient setback under 250 meters, many health problems causedby wind turbine noise had been mentioned in many investigation reports, including dizziness, tinnitus, migraines and headache. Some suggested, after a long term exposure to such noises, people are more easily to have sleep problem, poor immunity, heart attack and even cancers. In the past 12 years, Taiwan has installed about 450 wind turbines along her west coast-line. Many people were forced to emigrate out of town due to an insufficient and dangerous setback. Chen remarked that now many environment groups and YASA were working hard to negotiate an ideal setback as 650 meters. She stressed that a good energy policy "should be friendly to the people and the land", otherwise, it would be no better than building a nuclear power plant! Translated by Peter Wolfe |