A total of 1,280 kilograms of chromium-contaminated rice from Houbi township -- the southern Taiwan location of the popular documentary "The Last Rice Farmer" -- have been dumped and will be burned Friday, according to Tsai Hung-teh, executive secretary of the Cabinet-level EPA's Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Fund.

Citing the results of tests by the Tainan County government, Tsai said soil from rice paddies adjacent to a metalmaking slag recycling plant were found to contain excessive amounts of chromium -- over 692 ppm, or more than two times the EPA safety limit of 250 ppm.

Tsai said environmental officials will collect soil samples from vegetable farms near the recycling plant Tuesday for further testing.

According to Tsai, Tainan County's environmental bureau tested rice crop samples from paddies located close to the Chao Hsiang Co.-run steel slag recycling factory in September after it received reports from local farmers that their crops had withered or died in the wake of Typhoon Morakot in early August.

"Initial tests show that about 0.4 hectares of farmland have been contaminated by chromium," Tsai said.

The county's environmental authorities have ordered the recycling plant operator to pay the cost of dumping and destroying the contaminated rice, he added.

In addition, Tsai said, farmers can also ask the company to compensate them for their losses.

The rice paddy contamination was reported less than a week after nearly 10,000 ducks in Daliao township in Kaohsiung County were culled over a similar problem on duck farms.

Meanwhile, EPA Deputy Minister Chang Tzu-ching said on the sidelines of a Legislative Yuan meeting that his agency will assist farmers in seeking compensation for their losses and restoring the contaminated soil.

"The EPA will do its best to return clean plots of land to the farmers, " Chang promised.

Chang was responding to a front page report in the local China Times that farmlands in Houbi township have been seriously contaminated by chromium from a nearby steel slag recycling plant.

According to the report, the crops there have been withering or dying since the slag recycling plant was established three years ago.

As steel slag looks like clay, farmers at first mistook it for dumped clay.

The contamination issue escalated in the wake of Typhoon Morakot, as large amounts of chromium from the flooded recycling plant were believed to have leached into nearby farmlands, the report said.

Commenting on the report, Chang said the Tainan County government is handling the issue and that his agency will further investigate the case.

"Our initial investigation might not be meticulous enough, " but the agency will conduct a further probe and obtain more information about the extent and cause of damage, he added.

Noting that the EPA has technologies to restore contaminated soil, Chang reiterated that the agency will offer all necessary assistance to Houbi farmers.

(By Su Lung-chi, Liu Kuang-ying and Sofia Wu)