The Shaanxi lead poisoning incident and other stories: a China pollution round-up

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In recent weeks, Chinese media has been awash in news about pollution accidents or other incidents around China.  Here is an overview:

1. Lead poisoning in Fengxiang County, Shaanxi Province: more than 600 children were found to have lead poisoning (see here and here also) [Update: The smelter has been shutdown in the wake of unrest.]
2. Cadmium poisoning in Liuyang County, Hunan Province (see here also).
3. 78 officials sued over ‘environmental neglect’ in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province.
4. 4,000 people sickened by tap water contamination in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia (see here also).
5. An ammonia gas leak in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia: more than 200 workers were hospitalized when a pipe carrying ammonia gas burst.
6. Contaminated drinking water in Pinglu County, Shanxi Province: more than 100 people became ill from ‘suspected water contamination.’
7. Aniline pollution in Jilin City, Jilin Province: this story gained nation-wide and international attention when workers’ alleged illnesses were attributed to hysteria (see also).
8. The award for best title goes to Caijing for its excellent expose entitled ‘Heavy Metal Warfare’ on Hunan Province’s attempts to deal with its massive heavy metal pollution problems.

So, what exactly is going on here?

Just these media-reported incidents accounted for over 5,000 people sickened by pollution in the last few months.  We thought China was in the middle of a ‘green leap forward’ (See Christina Larson’s piece on this “China paradox”).  These incidents remind us of how intractable China’s pollution efforts will be unless significantly more is devoted to fundamentally reshaping China’s environmental governance.

It is no surprise that recent progress in China’s green tech has been driven by the powerful National Development & Reform Commission (NDRC), and not the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), which is responsible for pollution control.  Combine an insufficiently strong environmental agency with still limited opportunities for public supervision (though we are seeing more incremental signs of change, such as here) and the troubling incidents listed above are the result.  Any solution, we believe, will require building up MEP’s authority and continuing the moves in China on public involvement.

Getting the job done

The Caijing article in general gives a terrific overview of the type of comprehensive strategy, including central-local collaboration, increased funding, technical assistance and other techniques that will be needed if China is to begin to really tackle its pollution issues.  The article also has a story that reminds us how hard local enforcement can be in China (C. McElwee was already on this last week).

When a small smelter on the list of the government’s closure plan refused to stop production well after its deadline had passed, the county chief, flanked by local NPC delegates, relevant government agencies and armed paramilitary police, stormed into the plant and destroyed its furnaces with three tons of dynamite.

The article also talks about steps being taken in Changsha, which has been designated as one of two major environmental pilot cities in China (the other is Wuhan).[1] Let’s hope that this experimentation produces the sort of change needed to really get pollution under control.  While we don’t normally recommend it, whether or not this change requires several tons of dynamite, we leave to the local experts.

[1] These are so-called “two-style society” (两型社会) pilot cities – short for资源节约型、环境友好型社会 (resource conserving and environmentally friendly).