Qualla: Low-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Site

Low-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Site: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the early 1970s, planners in Taipei began looking for somewhere to put Taiwan's nuclear waste. The island's three nuclear power plants were generating material that needed a long-term home. The search eventually settled on a location at the southeastern tip of Orchid Island — Pongso no Tao, the island the Tao people have called home for centuries. The Tao were not consulted in any meaningful way. Construction began in 1978. The first drums of waste arrived in May 1982. The Tao have been asking for the waste's removal ever since.

Low-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Site: How the Decision Was Made

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Atomic Energy Council formed a task group in the early 1970s to identify sites for a temporary storage facility for low- and mid-level nuclear waste. The decision to use the Longmen area of Orchid Island was made in 1974; the Executive Yuan approved the construction plan at t...

Low-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Site: Ninety-Seven Thousand Drums

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Between May 1982 and February 1996, the Lanyu Storage Site accepted 97,672 drums of low-level radioactive waste. Of these, 86,380 came from Taiwan's three nuclear power plants and 11,292 came from various other sources. In February 1996, the site stopped accepting new waste. The...

Low-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Site: Decades of Opposition

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Tao's opposition to the facility has been persistent and public. They did not choose to be the host community for waste generated by power plants that serve mainland Taiwan's industrial economy. They did not benefit from that economy in proportion to what they were asked to b...

Low-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Site: Pongso no Tao

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Orchid Island is not simply a storage location. It is Pongso no Tao — the island of the people — home to the Tao, an Austronesian people whose culture, language, and way of life developed in relative isolation across centuries of Pacific island living. Their traditional knowledge...