Fighting a losing battle with pollution

• Source: The Global Times
• [09:56 May 27 2009]
• Comments

By Huang Jingjing and Wen Ya 

Illustration: Zhang Xixi
 
A former environmental protection official has spent the past four years trying to report two chemical plants for causing serious pollution but without success, he told the Global Times yesterday.

Hou Yizhong is a former secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Yizheng, Jiangsu Province.

He said the factories, both located in the Yangzhou Chemical Industry Park in the city, discharge pollutants despite being banned from doing so by local environmental protection agencies. They also produce chemicals such as aniline and EPI (epichlorohydrin) that have been found to cause birth defects and cancer.

“The air is filled with the smell of pesticide, but without any firm evidence, the local environmental departments can do little to deal with them,” he said.

Hou began reporting the pollution in 2005, when he was with the leadership group, and the documents he now has on the subject run to 200,000 words.

He said he has sent letters to many relevant institutes, including the Yangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau and the Ministry of the Environmental Protection.

“Some replied, but until now nothing had been done,” he said.

Ninety-five percent of the local people support his action, he said, and his most recent letter of appeal featured 203 signatures, including those of several ex-directors of the environmental protection bureau, finance bureau and education bureau.

“We have received Hou's report, but some of the content is untrue,” Bao Zhigao, a member of the developmental department at the Yangzhou Environment Protection Bureau, told the Global Times yesterday. He refused to say which parts were untrue.

“It's impossible for chemical factories to cause no pollution at all. Economic development and environmental protection always contradict each other,” he said.

He Hongjun, a vice-manager of the Youth Chemical Company, one of the accused plants, was quoted by the Xinhua News Agency as saying, “We have received several complaints but have never been punished.

“We collected and sent gas samples to the United States to be tested and the results showed that they are not harmful to humans.”

He Pingliang, who is in charge of environmental protection at the Jiangsu Ruixiang Chemical Industry Trade Company, the second plant, said the techniques it used to treat waste gas, water and residue were advanced.

“To reduce the impact, we even put a special cover on the treatment equipment,” he said.

However, that did not stop the Yizheng Environmental Protection Bureau fining both factories several times for pollution violations, Xinhua reported.

“Stand beside the covered waste-treatment pool of a chemical factory for just a while,” Xinhua reporter Sun Bin told the Global Times. “I felt dizzy, fatigued and had pains in my eyes.”

A villager from Nongge who lives less than 1 kilometer from the factories said that since they opened in 2003, the water from her well can no longer be used for washing.

“If I wear underwear washed in well water, I get red pimples,” she said.

“People here daren't open their windows because of the strange smell of gas.”

The Yangzhou Chemical Industry Park is the city's revenue pillar, and the two companies are the city's star performers, Hou said.

“Even when the environmental departments fine them, it's just a drop in the ocean to them.”

Each year, the Youth Chemical Company pays a duty of 200 million yuan, which is about half the park's fiscal income, the Xinhua report said.

“After handing in the penalty, the firms carry on with their production and even start projects without approval,” Hou said.

A woman from the Yizheng Environmental Monitoring Station told the Global Times on condition of anonymity they are not allowed to close down problematical firms.

They can only report their results to higher authorities, she said.

“But every time an accident happens, we're always the first people to be blamed,” she said.
Bao said that protecting the environment is an ongoing concern, and there are plans in the works to relocate some polluting projects, including projects of the two companies.

“In terms of environmental protection, we always welcome more whistle-blowers like Hou to supervise our work,” he said.