BEIJING - As China grappled with the
political and social fallout of trying to cover up
a toxic spill in the country's impoverished
northeast, rural communities emerged as the most
forsaken in government responses to environmental
hazards caused by rapid industrialization.
An explosion at a state-owned chemical
factory in Jilin city in
mid-November caused large quantities of poisonous
benzene to flow into the Songhua River that runs
through Harbin city, forcing
authorities to shut off
running water to the 3.8 million residents for
five days.
Though Harbin authorities
reacted slowly and misleadingly, the central
government mobilized resources rapidly, delivering
tons of bottled water to head off panic and
sending teams of officials to reassure fleeing
inhabitants.
And as contamination in the
Songhua threatened to spread to the Amur River
across the border with Russia, Chinese Foreign
Minister Li Zhaoxing issued a public apology to
Russia, expressing "regret over the possible harm
to be done to the Russian people by the major
environmental pollution accident".
But
little was said or done to alert the rural
communities in numerous towns and villages along
the Songhua between Jilin and Harbin about the
dangerous chemicals flowing in the water. The
authorities have offered no estimates on how many
people rely on the river for drinking water.
After the news of the spill filtered to
the villages surrounding Harbin, peasants started
digging underground wells for water, the local
media reported. But the environmental organization
Greenpeace has warned that any industrial
chemicals that have seeped into the soil would
have a long-term environmental impact. The
November 13 explosion released into the river
about 100 tons of benzene, which is highly toxic
and carcinogenic, along with some nitrobenzene, a
benzene derivative. High-level exposure to benzene
is known to cause leukemia, and there are concerns
that the same effects could result from long-term
low-level exposure through water or food.
"We urge the Chinese government to make
even greater efforts in protecting the local
people and the environment," said Kevin May,
toxics campaign manager of Greenpeace China. "It
should, for example, conduct a comprehensive
environmental impact assessment of the pollution
and, on that basis, draw up a plan and implement
effective cleanup."
Pollution concerns
have been behind a string of protests across the
country in recent months and the nexus between
local governments and factories which flout
environmental norms has aroused sharp criticism of
the Chinese Communist Party and government
officials.
In the latest incident,
officials in Jilin suppressed news of the spill,
some few hundred kilometers upriver from Harbin,
for more than 10 days. Public disquiet was also
fueled by a lack of information in the past about
health alarms, such as the spread of severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and natural
disasters where death tolls and the scope of
environmental hazards, until recently, were
considered state secrets.
The Jilin toxic
spill incident highlighted concerns about
environmental disasters triggered by China's rapid
urbanization. Even the usually docile state-run
media has accused the government of mishandling a
potential environmental catastrophe. The Beijing Youth Daily, the
mouthpiece of the Communist Party's youth league,
accused the authorities of an unjustifiable lie
that had "reduced public trust in the government".
The English-language China Daily drew
attention to the costs of China's rapid economic
development, which has blatantly disregarded
environmental preservation. "The 'GDP mania', or
preoccupation with gross-domestic product of
growth, has contributed to the ignorance of work
safety, pollution and educational needs, in some
cases," said an editorial in the paper November
29.
But the sharpest criticism came from
the People's Daily, the flagship of the party.
Life has returned to normal after several days of
water supply problems for Harbin residents, the
paper pointed out last week, "but it will be years
before 300 million farmers in the countryside get
access to clean drinking water free of fluorine,
arsenic and other poisonous industrial elements".
"We should provide rural residents with
enough safe drinking water. If this problem
remains unresolved, it would be shameful for us to
talk about a harmonious society," the paper said,
referring to the communist party leadership's
stated goal of putting poor people first and
narrowing the yawning wealth gap between the urban
and rural areas.
The paper had a series of
sobering figures regarding the scarcity and
quality of water supplies in rural China. Today,
some 96 million rural people lack daily access to
drinking water, more than 30 million farmers drink
bitter and salty water every day, and some 54
million have to contend with water containing high
levels of fluorine or arsenic.
Rapid
industrialization and urbanization have increased
demand for clean water, even as China's fast
development has polluted the water table and
turned many rivers into moving cesspools.
Government officials reckon 70% of China's
lakes and rivers are polluted. Speaking at a water
seminar this month, Chen Bangzhu, a senior
environmental expert, estimated that 75% of the
country's lakes were suffering from
eutrophication, or water pollution caused by
excessive plant nutrients in the form of
fertilizers, sewage and industrial waste. On an
average, 20 natural lakes "disappear" in China
every year and about 1,000 inland lakes had
vanished in the past 50 years, Chen revealed.
China's environmental situation is "grim",
even according to premier Wen Jiabao, who has
warned that strain on the country's environment
will only increase in the coming years as
industrialization and development continues. "We
must see clearly that at present we are
discharging more waste than our environment can
bear," he told a meeting of the State Council,
this month.
"As our economy develops and
our consumption of resources and energy increases,
our efforts to protect the environment will face
greater and greater pressure," the Xinhua news
agency quoted him as saying.
China to
help Russia According to China's Xinhua
News Service, China will send equipment to test
water for benzene to Russian authorities by
December 2 as the contaminated slick in the
Songhua River approaches the international border,
Chinese officials said. The heavily polluted
stretch of water is approaching the Heilong River
(called the Amur in Russia), a border river of the
two countries, at a speed of 2 kilometers per
hour. It is expected to reach the Russian city of
Khabarovsk in about 12 days.
A
seven-person Russian delegation from the
Khabarovsk Environmental Protection Bureau met
Tuesday with directors of the Heilongjiang
Environmental Protection Bureau, the Harbin Water
Supply Company and the Harbin Heat Supply Company
in the capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang
province.
Li Ping, a spokesman with the
provincial environmental protection bureau who
announced the agreement, also said the bureau
would send experienced personnel to help install
the equipment and train Russian personnel. Victor
Bardyuk, head of the delegation, said he was
satisfied with the arrangement. The delegation has
been updated twice a day with the situation of the
slick.
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry
spokesman Liu Jianchao said China started to
provide details of the river pollution to the
Russian Embassy on November 22 and regular reports
on water quality since November 24. He added that
China cared about the interest and concern of the
Russian people. Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, at a
meeting with Russian ambassador Sergei Razov on
November 26, expressed regret over the possible
harm that could be done.
Khabarovsk, with
a population of 600,000, will be the first Russian
city affected; three other cities farther
downstream will also be affected. Bardyuk said no
poisonous substances are now found in the Heilong
River, but the water supply for Khabarovsk could
be cut three hours before the slick arrived. "It
depends on the density and the amount of the
pollutants," he said.
A shutdown of
Khabarovsk's water service could last three days.
But if the density of pollutants is greatly
reduced, there may be no need to cut the water
supply, but only to adopt a more advanced
filtration technique, he added. The city has
accumulated 20 tons of activated carbon to upgrade
its water filtration system and is asking for
more, he noted. Zhai Pingyang, deputy director of
the Heilongjiang Environmental Protection Bureau,
told China Daily it was still unclear how the
slick would affect the Heilong River as it is
still a long way from it.
Leadership
reshuffle at PetroChina Xinhua also
reported on December 1 that PetroChina had denied
any relationship between the company's latest
leadership reshuffle and the recent explosion at
its subsidiary in Jilin province. "It is a purely
normal leadership adjustment," claimed the
company's spokesman.
PetroChina's major
rival Sinopec, whose top management team was
overhauled several days ago, made similar claims.
The coincidence may be because the country's
Ministry of Personnel, which supervises leadership
appointments for large state-owned companies, may
have recently approved the two companies' new
management.
Industry watchers point out
that the three newly promoted vice presidents of
PetroChina all come from the company's exploration
and development division, while Sinopec's three
new leaders, all in their 40s, all have a
background in the downstream sector.
PetroChina's board of directors on
November 28 appointed Su Shulin and Duan Wende as
the company's senior vice presidents, Wang
Guoliang as the Chief Financial Officer, and Liao
Yongyuan, Jia Chengzhao and Hu Wenrui as vice
presidents. Meanwhile, the board also appointed
Wang Fucheng as the chairman of the board of
supervisors.
An insider with PetroChina
denied that the reshuffle had any relationship
with the explosion at Jilin Petrochemical. He also
said that Chen Gen, the president of PetroChina,
is still chairman of PetroChina and general
manager of CNPC, PetroChina's parent company.
One day before, Sinopec also announced new
appointments. Cai Xiyou was appointed as Sinopec's
Senior Vice President, and Dai Houliang and Zhang
Haichao as vice presidents. Zhang Jiaren and Cao
Xianghong have retired as senior vice presidents
because of "old age".
