In terms of an overview, I thought that the event was a good review and summary of the international offenses of Formosa Plastics. As a researcher, I would like to know more about the different panelists' views on what can be done in each setting, as many have stated a lot of the historical offenses but left out their answers to the lead organizers' questions posed in the beginning of the event.
The concept of accountability was repeatedly brought up throughout this event. Lawyer Larochelle has stated, "There is no clear path for someone to hold accountability for what happened; there is a gap, accountability gap that exists all over. People need to organize, lawyers, academics."
Philippe Larochelle, a lawyer that works out of Montreal Canada but has been working on international criminal law cases and class action on environmental matters, which has led to his work now with Nancy Bui on Formosa.
Larochelle did his best to address a few of the questions posed by the lead organizers in the beginning of the event:
What are the main injustices happening with Formosa Plastics Corporation?
What do you think should be done?
Out of many of the panelists, I found Larochelle to be one of the few that really attempted to address these questions and answer to best of his expertise on the legal matters surrounding the Formosa case in Vietnam and Taiwan. Many Zoom attendees wanted him to expand on his statement of how Taiwan's stance as "not completely a country" making it challenging to operate in that environment when it comes to international law. Later on, he answered via Zoom chat that there is a disconnect between Taiwan and international law as there is no access to UN special procedures, but it is "very possible to sue Formosa there".
Diane Wilson: advocate in Calhoun County, Texas
Paul Jobin: a sociologist, academic at a university in Taiwan
Ta Du’c Tri: mayor of the city of westminster, Vietnamese-American
-The mayor spoke about the importance of this event to Vietnamese-Americans and the community in Westminster.
Nancy Bui: spoke on what she’s observed in the Formosa-Vietnam Case
-In April 2016, Formosa dumped chemicals, metals, into Vietnam waters and because of the delay in recognizing the problem, the Vietnamese government took over 3 months to recognize this issue. Two law companies; 800 something victims are to sue he Formosa in Taiwan and the U.S.
This event was held at the University of California, Irvine in-person on campus and over Zoom. "This seminar will focus on harms caused by the operations of Formosa Plastics Corporation in Taiwan, Vietnam and the United States, focusing on coastal communities. Panelists include people who have spent years working to address these harms in different ways." (DisasterSTS). The lead organizers include Tim Schutz and Kim Fortun.
This supplementary legal document describes recommendations for storm- and waste-water management improvements for the Formosa petrochemical plant in Calhoun County, Texas. The text is a fairly standard drainage assessment. The author describes non-trivial discharge of pollutants out of the plant’s outfalls, which drain into local waters, and the inability of the plant’s systems to prevent flooding from even small storms. For some context on this, it is pretty standard to design a stormwater system to be able to drain the 100-year storm (that is, the storm with a 1% or less chance of occurring in any given year). Formosa’s Texas plant demonstrated the inability to convey even the 2-year storm.
Emphases are mine:
“Problem areas were identified based on the results from the outfall drainage studies provided by Formosa. Thus, all the results in the OPCC rely on those studies, uncertainities associated with those studies, and the assumptions made for those studies, some of which may or may not be appropriate as I pointed out in Supplement #2 [Page 4]” (3)
“The proposed improvements assume that the conveyance capacity of the problem areas is increased 100%, which would be able to handle twice as much flow that it currently does. The results from the Drainage Study are not conclusive as to what storm event Formosa’s system currently is capable of conveying. The report does mention that the system is not capable of conveying the 2-year storm, and “sometimes” not even the 1-year storm event.” (3)
“A 45% contingency is applied to the OPCC due to the uncertainties associated with underground utilities, likelihood of existence of low road crossings and need to replace those, groundwater impacts, other unknowns, and additional costs associated with engineering, etc. 45% is reasonable and in line with industry practices in my experience, especially given the large amount of unknown information available.” (4)
“My opinion from my July 9, 2018 report that “there have been and are still pellets and/or plastic materials discharges above trace amounts through Outfall 001” is further supported by the deposition testimony of Lisa Vitale, as representative for Freese & Nichols, Inc, that she and her colleagues have seen floating white pellets or small plastic pieces in Lavaca Bay and in the area near outfall 001 as part of her work on the receiving water monitoring program for Formosa’s TPDES permit...Ms. Vitale also testified that she told John Hyak of Formosa about these sightings as well as has sent him water samples with the pellets about five or six times, including at least one time prior to 2010. This, along with the June 2010 EPA Report I cited in my July Report, demonstrates to me that Formosa was aware of problems related to discharges of plastics from its facility since at least in 2010.” (6)