30-Second Overview: In 1982, Orchid Island began receiving low-level radioactive waste from across Taiwan; in 1996, the storage facility reached capacity, yet this did not mark the end of "temporary" storage. The Tao people have repeatedly demanded the relocation of the site since 1988, and the 2018 official truth investigation brought the establishment process back into the spotlight. This article does not declare conclusions of "safe" or "dangerous" for either side, but instead asks: If a homeland was selected as a storage site without the residents' knowledge, can subsequent monitoring data alone answer the question of justice?
Viewing Extension: Orchid Island Low-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Facility.
Image Source: Taipower Nuclear Backend Operations Official Website, "2022 September 'Lan' Island Scenery Reappears, Ties to the South Islands for Half a Century." 1
1982: Yellow Barrels Arrived Before the Truth
The Orchid Island Low-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Facility is not an isolated structure that appeared out of nowhere. The Nuclear Safety Commission’s English historical page notes that in 1972, the Atomic Energy Council convened scholars, nuclear research institutions, and Taipower to evaluate abandoned mine pits, highlands, uninhabited islands, and offshore islands; at the time, "future sea dumping" was still listed as a consideration for low-level radioactive waste disposal technology. In late 1975, the Executive Yuan approved the construction plan; Phase I engineering began in 1978. 2
This history is important not to retroactively cast today’s Orchid Island storage facility as a project doomed to fail from the start, but to remind us that it was born in an era of rapid nuclear expansion, when sea dumping had not yet become a taboo. The reasons for site selection cited terrain isolation, sparse population, and convenient sea transport. The same set of conditions later became the starting point for the Tao people’s questioning of "who is considered isolatable." 2
In 1982, the storage facility officially began receiving radioactive waste. Nuclear Safety Commission data records that the site contains 23 storage trenches with a design capacity of 133,728 barrels. In July 1990, management responsibilities were transferred from the Atomic Energy Council to Taipower. 3 Taipower’s own special article notes that the storage facility reached capacity in 1996, after which it ceased accepting new low-level radioactive waste. 1
"Ceasing to accept new ones" can easily be heard as "the problem is over." But the timeline of a storage facility does not stop on the day the last barrel is delivered. The barrels remain on the island, the trenches still require maintenance, and someone must be responsible for land leases, environmental monitoring, and the site selection of a final disposal facility.
Viewing Extension: News footage of Orchid Island nuclear waste barrel reorganization, showing workers and nuclear waste barrels.
Image Source: PTS Our Island "Yellow Cans and I" Video Details Page; thumbnail is the video's original hot link.
What the Tao People See Is Not a Facility, But a Rewritten Homeland
For the Tao people, Orchid Island is not an empty space that can be calculated by "population density." Taiwan Insight research articles point out that the Tao people’s lives are closely linked to the sea, rivers, groundwater, farmlands, and foraging activities. The risks brought by nuclear waste are not limited to dosage and regulations, but also include psychological and cultural impacts on traditional beliefs and physical comfort. 4
PTS’s Our Island report makes this scale of life more concrete: the sea is the father in children’s eyes, and the taro fields are the embrace of the mother. Taro is not just a crop, but also part of daily diet and rituals. 5 This is not romanticizing the island, but explaining why "whether off-site environmental levels are below standards" and "whether the homeland is suitable for placing nuclear waste" have never been the same question in the experience of the community.
In February 1998, hundreds of Tao people living in Taipei went to the front of Taipower’s headquarters to demand the removal of the storage facility, with the protest named "Exorcising the Evil Spirits of Orchid Island." Taiwan Insight records that Taipower had promised to remove the storage facility by the end of 2002, but the relocation was delayed due to the failure to select a final disposal site. 4 PTS recorded that between 1988 and 1991, Orchid Island held anti-nuclear activities to exorcise evil spirits on February 20 for three consecutive years. 5
The protests did not begin from an abstract "anti-nuclear stance," but from the accumulation of experiences of being told, concealed, promised, and then waiting without results. Those who did not know what would be placed in their homeland back then had to spend decades learning about radionuclides, storage trenches, and regulations in order to demand that the state account for the words it had spoken.
Viewing Extension: News footage of newly reorganized Orchid Island nuclear waste barrels.
Image Source: PTS 2011 Orchid Island Nuclear Waste Barrel Reorganization News Video Details Page; thumbnail is the video's original hot link.
One Storage Facility, Two Languages of "Safety"
The Nuclear Safety Commission’s explanation of the storage facility is specific: waste is first solidified, then placed in steel barrels, and finally put into concrete trenches. The trenches are equipped with an infiltration water collection system, which collects water and then processes it with a concentrator. The competent authority calls this design a "multi-barrier" system and points out that since 1996 (Republic of China calendar), measures for zero activity discharge have been adopted. 6
Taipower’s environmental monitoring page states that annual monitoring includes air, seawater, drinking water, river water, groundwater, agricultural/fishery/pastoral products, soil, and beach sand. Taipower’s conclusion is that historical environmental samples have all been within safe ranges, and parallel monitoring also falls within the range of background radiation fluctuations. 7 This data is an indispensable half of understanding official regulatory methods.
The other half is letting readers see how the word "safety" is used in the controversy. A 2012 PTS report noted that between 1982 and 1996, Orchid Island received over 97,000 barrels of nuclear waste, stored in 23 open-air trenches. The report also stated that reorganization engineering found a large number of rusted and damaged barrels. 5 The same report also presented different interpretations by Taipower, the Atomic Energy Council, and scholars regarding the sampling results of Cesium-137 and Cobalt-60 and the applicable standards. This is not treating an old report as the final judgment, but preserving the original form of the controversy: the same batch of environmental data may yield different public meanings due to differences in sampling locations, comparison standards, and risk understanding.
A 2011 Taipei Times editorial also mentioned the controversy over soil sampling, Cesium-137, Cobalt-60, and different standards, but it itself is commentary, not primary research. 8 Therefore, what can be strictly written is not "Orchid Island has been proven polluted" or "Orchid Island has absolutely no problems," but rather: relevant monitoring has sparked public controversy, and officials and critics have been inconsistent regarding standards, sampling locations, and data interpretation. This approach is slower, but closer to the truth than passing judgment for the reader in advance.
2018: The State Finally Turns Back to Ask "How Was It Decided Initially?"
On August 1, 2016, the President apologized to Indigenous peoples on behalf of the government and promised to investigate the decision-making process regarding the storage of nuclear waste on Orchid Island. The Executive Yuan’s Orchid Island Nuclear Waste Storage Facility Establishment Truth Investigation Group later completed the Truth Investigation Report on the Establishment of the Nuclear Waste Orchid Island Storage Facility, published by the Council of Indigenous Peoples in September 2018, totaling 746 pages. 9
The importance of this report lies not only in its thickness, but in that it pushes the question forward from "what are the current monitoring values" to "what were the initial establishment assessment, planning approval, community consultation, land expropriation, and decision-making process." The book’s table of contents lists these chapters, indicating that the report is positioned as a reference for future reconciliation and equal negotiation with Indigenous peoples. 9
Taiwan Insight’s interpretation of the report points out that official documents did not prove that the establishment decision obtained the informed consent of the Tao people. The article also divides the controversy into three aspects: distributive injustice, recognition injustice, and procedural exclusion. 4 In other words, the truth investigation did not turn nuclear waste into an object that only needs to be handled by engineering means. It reconnects a stretch of concrete trenches to the history of land, ethnicity, and state power.
Compensation Can Calculate Money, But Not Necessarily Return the Homeland
On November 29, 2019, Taiwan Insight recorded that Tao anti-nuclear activists refused to replace relocation with compensation in front of the Executive Yuan. They demanded the establishment of a communication platform, the legalization of nuclear waste disposal and compensation, and the redirection of funds toward relocation. 4 This choice does not need to be interpreted as "the community does not need compensation," but should be understood as: when the core of a problem is who decides the homeland, monetary amounts may not substitute for consent and relocation.
Here lies a contradiction familiar to Taiwanese society, yet often discussed in isolation: The state can use engineering language to explain how trenches prevent leakage, use monitoring numbers to show how the environment is below limits, and use feedback funds to explain what the locality gained. But what the community may be asking is another sentence—why was this decision not one we could participate in from the beginning?
Placing this sentence back into Taiwan’s nuclear history, Orchid Island is no longer just a geographical question of "where nuclear waste is placed." It allows people to see how energy interests are linked to land governance, and how the informed consent of Indigenous peoples is not merely a procedure on the last page of a policy presentation, but the prerequisite for determining whether a place can be used to bear national risks.
The Yellow Barrels Remain; Time Has Not Closed the Case for Either Side
As of the Nuclear Safety Commission’s English regulatory page updated in December 2024, the Orchid Island storage facility is still listed as subject to low-level radioactive waste regulations. The page simultaneously preserves the history of site selection in the 1970s, receipt in 1982, and transfer to Taipower in 1990. 3 Taipower, in a 2022 special article, stated that the storage facility is still managed by the nuclear backend unit and listed safety maintenance and ecological restoration as parallel work items. 1
These official pages do not provide a completed date for the relocation issue. They tell us how the facility operates, how it is monitored, and how it is maintained. The truth investigation report and the Tao people’s protest history, however, ask why the facility lacks evidence of obtaining the Tao people’s informed consent in existing data, and why subsequent promises did not conclude in 2002.
The reason Orchid Island’s yellow barrels have become an object in Taiwan’s history is not because they look particularly special, but because they compress over forty years of time into a specific place: one island, one group of residents, 23 trenches, and a future that has not yet been jointly agreed upon. True closure will not be merely moving the barrels from one coordinate on the map to another. It must also allow those who were once excluded to become the ones who decide the next coordinate.
Further Reading
- Executive Yuan Orchid Island Nuclear Waste Storage Facility Establishment Truth Investigation Report
- Nuclear Safety Commission: Orchid Island Storage Facility Safety Control Explanation
- Taiwan Insight: Tao People’s Fight for Environmental Justice and Subjectivity on Orchid Island
References
- Taipower Nuclear Backend Operations Official Website: 2022 September "Lan" Island Scenery Reappears, Ties to the South Islands for Half a Century — Taipower special article explaining the storage facility’s 1982 activation, 1990 transfer, 1996 capacity, and Taipower’s official stance on safety maintenance and ecological restoration.↩23
- Nuclear Safety Commission: The Oversight of Lan-yu Storage Site — Nuclear Safety Commission English official historical page, explaining the 1972 site selection assessment, 1975 approval, 1978 start of construction, and that sea dumping was included in early disposal considerations.↩2
- Nuclear Safety Commission: The Oversight of Lan-yu Storage Site — Nuclear Safety Commission 2024 updated English regulatory data, recording 23 trenches, 133,728 barrel design capacity, 1982 receipt, and 1990 transfer to Taipower.↩2
- Taiwan Insight: Tao People’s Fight for Environmental Justice and Subjectivity on Orchid Island — Article from the National Taiwan University Taiwan Center at the University of Nottingham, analyzing the Tao people’s environmental justice, 1998 protests, 2002 relocation promises, and informed consent controversies.↩234
- PTS Our Island: Yellow Cans and I — Public Television report on 1988–1991 protests, nuclear waste barrel quantities and rust, environmental sampling controversies, and residents’ lived experience of the homeland.↩23
- Nuclear Safety Commission: Orchid Island Storage Facility Safety Control Explanation — Nuclear Safety Commission Chinese regulatory page, explaining the five-barrier system, trench leakage prevention, infiltration water treatment, and zero activity discharge measures.↩
- Taiwan Power Company: Orchid Island Low-Level Storage Facility Operation Status - Environmental Monitoring — Taipower environmental information page, listing sampling items such as air, water, agricultural/fishery/pastoral products, soil, and beach sand, along with official monitoring conclusions.↩
- Taipei Times: EDITORIAL: Living in a nuclear wasteland — 2011 English editorial summarizing public controversies over Cesium-137, Cobalt-60 sampling, and standard applicability; this article positions it as a commentary source, not primary research.↩
- Alilin Indigenous Peoples E-Book City: Truth Investigation Report on the Establishment of the Nuclear Waste Orchid Island Storage Facility — Page for the 746-page primary investigation report published by the Council of Indigenous Peoples in 2018, listing chapters on establishment assessment, community consultation, land expropriation, and decision analysis.↩2