Chapter 3 The Meinung Anti-dam Movement
In October 1992, peasants farming in the Twin Creeks area saw a surveying team exploring the geography and geology there. The rumor, which had been lingering in Meinung for about ten years, was thus verified that the government planned to build a dam in Meinung. The response in Meinung was mixed. The hometown youths that were unemployed or not fully employed welcomed the project out of the expectation that it might bring huge job opportunities. Many representatives of the Township Council felt humiliated because of the lack of democratic procedures; they as representatives of the Meinung people, were not informed or invited to participate in the decision-making. Elder gentry who lived through the Japanese occupation were worried about the safety of the dam. As far back as they could remember, the Twin Creeks area had been explored by Japanese engineers for the possibility of building dam. But the Japanese soon gave up because the geology there was too soft for dam construction, a belief also shared by the peasants farming there.
Even local intellectuals of younger generation held ambivalent attitude to the dam project. On the one hand, they confronted with the economic opportunity that the dam could produce. In face of agricultural declines and increasing emigration from Meinung, it might be possible that dam construction could bring about another tide of prosperity to Meinung, and let more Meinung people stay at home. On the other hand, from their knowledge of KMT regime they could hardly imagine that it would take local welfare into account. If local people did not get organized and let their voices be heard, the economic opportunity would either bypass or be treated as mere booty divided among local influentials.
On October 1992, a group of local intellectuals got together and discussed five principal reasons against the dam project.
First, the dam will be a deadly psychological burden and will threaten the safety of Meinung. The dam is only 1,900 meters from the nearest village, and 4,000 meters to downtown. It is also believed that the dam site had been found by Japanese engineers to possess serious faults.
Second, the dam is not economical in two senses. On the one hand, soft shale and sandstone, both of which are detrimental to the dam’ s life span, mostly make up the geology of the Twin Creeks catchment area. On the other hand, of all the water to be provided by the dam, 80% is for steel and petrochemical plants only 20% for urban civilian uses. As widely recognized, these highly polluting industries have been major contributors to the environmental devastation and public health problems of southern Taiwan.
Third, the Twin Creeks area possesses ecological and cultural resources, which are precious to Taiwan. In the Japanese period, over one hundred species of tropical trees were transplanted here from the southern Pacific.
Similar weather, abundant rainfall and high humidity have guaranteed their exotic growth and this experimental tropical forest (also referred to as the Tropical Mother Forest) has become the most diverse forest in Taiwan. The rainy weather and suitable flora (especially Indian rose chestnut trees) also contribute to the formation of the yellow butterfly ecology, which has been so famous that the Twin Creeks received another name, Yellow Butterfly Valley. The valley has become a natural classroom for nature education and ecology enthusiasts. Recently, under the creative management of various artists, the mother forest also became the only Forest Theater in Taiwan. Ecological environment and theatrical culture are fused organically in the valley. The Twin Creeks area is also the homeland of Li-Ho Chung, one of the greatest Taiwanese writers of the first half of Twentieth Century, and his masterpieces are kept here.
Forth, the decision-making processes of the dam project, which will be highly influential in Meinung’ s future, is anti-democratic; no effort to invite the broader participation of the local people and local government has been made.
Finally, instead of building short-lived dams, the most reliable way to provide sustainable water is through environmental repair. The Kaoping River has to be depolluted and the ruined upstream mountains have to be reforested.
After several meetings, as more negative impacts were submitted and discussed, the idea of negotiating with the government for local benefits were put aside; the dam issue became a question of life or death. These intellectuals managed to persuade Township Mayor, who then informed the central bureaucrats of the necessity of holding a local public hearing for the dam project.
On December 10, 1992, the first public hearing on the Meinung Dam took place in an auditorium of a local elementary school. The dam’s negative impacts on ecology, sustainable management of water resource, Hakka culture and, most importantly, local safety, were exposed and examined.
The hearing paved the way for successive organization and mobilization. An organization of local intellectuals, township representatives, and farmers took form afterwards. They referred to themselves as the Meinung People’s Association (MPA). On April 1993 and May 1994, the MPA successfully mobilized local people and launched petition action against the dam project, leading to two consecutive suspensions of the dam project’s budget.
