On Wednesday the 16th we visited several locations in the northern part of Tainan County and the southern part of Chiayi County, where electric furnace slag (a byproduct of steel production) has been used for construction. These include streets, walls and smaller roads. The slag depending on the type can be high in heavy metals (such as Cr, Pb, Zn etc.) and therefore increase the risk for cancer. Measurements show values up to 70-times above the limit that is considered unharmful.

 

Some results found:

 

Cr: 1161 ppm (limit: 250)

Zn: 138000 ppm (limit: 2000)

 

Some types of slag are more dangerous as others, and some have high levels of a specific metal.

 

We also encountered factories that have been built on declared farming land, probably illegal but not pursued by the government, since they have links to government officials and allegedly also to organized crime. As a factory owner told an affected farmer that calling the EPA would be no use. Land is also rented from farmers, luring them with higher pay than the government can, and then basically turning this land into debris area which permanently makes the ground inarable, even after it’s returned to farmers. But there are some who refuse to rent their land because they’re not sure what the companies are going to do with it.

The factory itself uses slag in their mixture to produce bricks.

 

Another nearby factory, also illegal, has been flooded during 2008 typhoon Marokat, with toxic materials being released into farming land. The following attempted clean up could not completely remove the contamination, so that the land still shows high levels of heavy metals.