CorpWatch : Formosa Plastics Admits Vietnam Steel Plant Caused Massive Fish Kill

For the record (07/2016):

In late June, the government finally acknowledged that Formosa Steel was responsible. Eventually the company also admitted that it had dumped cyanide, iron hydroxide and phenols into the sea.

But at first the company was defiant saying it had done nothing wrong. “Before we built the plant, we got the permission from the Vietnamese government,” Chou Chun Fan, the head of the Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Company office in Hanoi told reporters. “You want the fish, or the steel plant? You have to choose. If you want both, I will tell you that you can’t, even if you are the prime minister.”

Fan’s remarks incited a firestorm of criticism and the company backed down. “We deeply hope the Vietnam people can forgive us,” Tran Nguyen Thanh, chairman of the board of Formosa Plastics said in an video statement.

Vietnamese scientists say that the coral reefs in central Vietnam could take 50 years to recover.