Metal poisoning part of everyday life along Xiang River
For villagers in a Hunan town where untreated toxic waste killed at least five people and prompted a mass protest last week, metal poisoning has long been part of everyday life.
High concentrations of life-threatening cadmium were not only found in the residents of Zhentou town, which is under the jurisdiction of Liuyang, but also in their crops and drinking water.
Cadmium is just one of the toxic heavy metals that have contaminated the river, which is a lifeline for tens of millions of Hunan natives.
The Xiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze that runs through the provincial capital, Changsha, has been known for its metal pollution problems since the early 1970s and has become one of the dirtiest rivers in China over the past three decades.
The river provides drinking water to more than 40 million people.
Although authorities have spent tens of billions of dollars to clean up the river, pollution seems to have only got worse.
Hunan, known as a land of non-ferrous metals, has relied heavily on the metal refining industry - mostly along the river and its tributaries - to boost its economy.
With dazzling double-digit economic growth, the energy-intensive sectors have taken a heavy toll on the environment and people.
According to Ma Jun, who runs the country's first water pollution database, Hunan has topped the list of the biggest emitters on the mainland of mercury, lead and chromium, as well as cadmium. It also led mainland provinces in other key categories of polluting discharge such as arsenic, sulphur dioxide and chemical-oxygen demand, a measure of water pollution.
Metal leaks have been rampant in the province in recent years, threatening freshwater supplies and posing health risks to people along the Xiang River.
Cadmium poisoning left more than 150 people ill in a village under Zhuzhou's jurisdiction in 2006.
'The metal pollution in Liuyang was just the tip of the iceberg,' said Weng Lida, former head of the Yangtze River Water Resources Protection Commission.
Mr Ma, head of the non-governmental Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said although authorities had promised to clean up pollution for years, they had yet to face up to the harsh reality.
The Xianghe Chemical factory, the culprit behind the current pollution scandal, was blacklisted as a top polluter by provincial authorities last year, the Hunan environmental protection bureau said.
Both environmentalists admitted that cleaning up the Xiang River remained an uphill battle even though more than 300 billion yuan (HK$340 billion) has been earmarked for the job. 'Officials must learn a bitter lesson from the pollution scandal in Liuyang - that there are wrongs that cannot be righted and should never have been made in the first place,' Mr Weng said.
