Three senior employees of China's biggest gold producer, the Zijin Mining Group, have been detained after a toxic leak from a pond at one of its mines polluted a river and killed tonnes of fish in Shanghang county, Fujian , local authorities said yesterday.
Police arrested the chief, deputy chief and head of environmental protection at the copper mine on Thursday, deputy county head Liang Basheng told a midnight press conference. The county's environment chief had resigned and the director of its economy and trade bureau had been suspended.
An investigation team made up of environmental protection officials from higher-level governments found that sewage leaked through an observation well and then an intentionally excavated drainage tunnel to the Ting River after the impermeable membrane of the mine's sludge pond broke.
Investigators also found that water quality monitoring equipment downriver from the plant had been damaged, which caused a delay in finding out about the pollution.
On Monday, nine days after the spill, Zijin, which is also China's third largest copper producer, blamed the leak on rain that has pounded Fujian for weeks. It claimed to have responded immediately to the spill and controlled it within 24 hours.
Liang said that unlike Zijin's sluggish response, the local government had promptly released details to residents through various channels. He said that after the spill, water quality status reports were updated daily and national standards for drinking water, company sewage and fishing water were publicised to avoid panic.
Staff at the Zijinshan Copper Mine hydro-metallurgical plant discovered on July 3 that a waste pond had been leaking, resulting in about 9,100 cubic metres of acidic waste water spilling into the Ting River.