Environmental groups seek halt to LNG terminal breakwater construction

環保團體要求停止液化天然氣接收站防波堤工程

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Environmental groups announced Tuesday that they would seek to halt breakwater construction at the Guantang LNG terminal in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District.

The Supreme Administrative Court ruled on Aug. 20 that the Ministry of the Interior had failed to conduct a review verifying whether state-owned CPC Corp.’s Guantang LNG terminal development project satisfied all the requirements under the Coastal Zone Management Act for the issuance of a project permit, per UDN.

The court said the ministry’s coastal zone management review committee had examined only whether CPC’s land use was minimal, failing to investigate the company’s measures to compensate for or restore environmental damage.

The ministry expressed surprise at the ruling and said it would hold internal deliberations to decide its next step. CPC, meanwhile, stressed that the case did not affect construction of the breakwater or the project’s core area, adding that LNG flows would not be impeded.

Algal reef referendum leader Pan Chung-cheng (潘忠政) said at the time that because the terminal was already operational and the reef had already been damaged, the ruling would do little to make up for the loss. Taoyuan Coastal Zone Ecological Conservation Association Honorary Chair Yeh Ssu-kuei (葉斯桂) called on the government to designate the area as a conservation zone to protect the algal reefs from further damage, per EDN.

Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association lawyer Tsai Ya-ying (蔡雅瀅), who is handling the lawsuit seeking a halt to construction, said Tuesday that because the terminal had already reached its maximum output in June, suspending construction would have little impact on the public interest, per CNA.

Fellow association lawyer Chen Hsien-cheng (陳憲政) said the 2026 ruling was the first case in which an Interior Ministry coastal development permit had been revoked.

Chen stressed that allowing construction to continue after the court’s ruling would render remedies through the administrative courts moot. He called on CPC to respect the ruling by halting construction and undergoing another review.

A major point of contention between CPC and environmental groups has been whether construction damaged the algal reefs in the area, per Our Island. Environmental groups have claimed that CPC’s construction harmed the local ecology by causing excessive sedimentation, killing algae, and directly damaging the reefs.

CPC, however, commissioned teams from National Chung Hsing University and National Taiwan Ocean University that rejected the claim that the sediment came from CPC’s construction or that construction directly damaged the reefs. A report published by National Taiwan Ocean University suggested that the reefs were thriving in the site’s G1 and G2 areas.

At a meeting between CPC and environmental groups in February, the two sides continued to debate the reefs’ ability to recover and the general causes of their poor health, per Our Island. Data provided by National Taiwan Ocean University indicated that the algal reef was in decline, though the two sides could not agree on the cause.

National Taiwan Ocean University argued that the change was caused by climate and sedimentation, while environmental groups believed the decline resulted from CPC’s construction. Regarding the extremely fine sediment, environmental groups rejected a possible connection with the construction, while CPC argued that it might have come from other sources.

The breakwater construction is currently under legal scrutiny over possible project cost inflation. CPC has also said that another lawsuit filed by environmental groups could cause construction of the breakwater to cease, per UDN.