China Environmental News Digest

Daily updated Environmental news related to China

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

HAZE DYNASTY

January 17, 2006,Via Earth Observatory.nasa.gov

China has darkened over the past half-century. Where has all the sunshine gone? The usual suspect, at least to a climatologist, would be cloud cover.

But in the most comprehensive study to date of overcast versus cloud-free days in China, a team led by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, reporting in the current advance online issue of Geophysical Research Letters, has found that cloud cover has been decreasing for the past 50 years.

Eliminating clouds from the dimming equation now leaves little doubt that human activity, in the form of a nine-fold increase in fossil fuel emissions over the same half-century period, has entrenched China in a foggy haze that absorbs and deflects the sun’s rays.

For the study, PNNL senior research scientist and lead author Yun Qian and colleagues surveyed records from more than 500 weather stations across China for the years 1954 to 2001. To remove the subjectivity and ambiguity of “partly cloudy” reports, they consulted only records of an either/or nature—cloud-free and overcast days. Their statistical analysis noted a clear trend: overcast days decreased .78 percent each decade while cloud-free days increased .6 percent for the same period.

The results, said co-author Ruby Leung, a PNNL laboratory fellow, “strongly suggest that increasing aerosol concentrations (particles, mainly soot and sulfur, that pollute the air) in the past has produced a fog-like haze that has reduced solar radiation (surface heat from sunshine), despite more frequent clear days that should lead to increased solar radiation.”

In fact, a report in Science last year showed that most of the planet’s surface is brightening, attributable to air-pollution regulation throughout most of the industrialized world. The report even showed a curious blip in surface brightness in China in the mid-90s, Leung noted. “Our results showed a similar trend in the mid-90s, consistent with the Science paper.

“However, air pollution in China has not decreased in the 1990s, so it is not clear if the short term increasing trend in solar radiation in China is due to cleaner air, as the Science paper suggested.”

If anything, the pollution outlook in China is likely to grow darker as population and economic activity burgeon, said Qian. “Haze doesn’t just block the solar radiation. It is also infamous for acid rain and respiratory diseases.”

What’s more, the haze has masked the effects of global warming across large parts of China, particularly in the central and eastern regions, where daily high temperatures have actually been decreasing. This may seem like good news, Qian said, but any success China has in curbing emissions will accelerate the effects of global warming in those areas when cooling is unmasked.

And that may not be the worst of it. Qian pointed to a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences report last year on haze, or “atmospheric brown clouds,” in South Asia that implicated air pollution in disrupting the water cycle. As less radiation reaches the surface, the atmosphere may become more stable and clouds more persistent than usual and less water will evaporate from the surface, a finding corroborated by Qian’s China study. The result is less water vapor available for clouds or precipitation.

Simulations cited in the PNAS paper calculate that up to 50 percent of the surface warming in South Asia has been masked by haze. If emission trends continue, the subcontinent will face twice as many droughts in the next decade.

DAMAGE CONTROL FOR RUSSIA AND CHINA AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL

By Sergei Blagov Monday, January 23, 2006 Via Eurasia Daily Monitor

The November 2005 benzene spill came as an unwanted irritant for Moscow's and Beijing's stated policy of "strategic partnership." Subsequently, both sides went ahead with damage control measures, which were summed up at talks in Moscow.

To deal with the slick's aftermath, a Chinese mission headed by Zhao Inmin, technical department head of China's environmental agency, traveled to Russia. On January 17, the deputy speaker Valentin Kuptsov of Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, met Chinese officials to discuss the spill. On January 18, deputy speaker Alexander Torshin from Russia's Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, met Chinese officials and hailed the joint work to tackle the spill. Yet he added that bilateral environmental cooperation should be further enhanced.

In response, Zhao Inmin reiterated China's official apologies over the incident. He also said only 63 kilograms of benzene remained frozen in Songhua and Heilongjiang (Amur) waters, according to Chinese expert estimates. Zhao Inmin argued there would be no major contamination when polluted ice melts in the spring.

Previously, Chinese authorities estimated that some 100 tons of benzene and nitrobenzene were released in the chemical plant explosion in Jilin province on November 13. The incident entailed a 50-mile-wide toxic benzene slick into the Songhua River, which flows into the Amur River.

Yet Russia's Rosprirodnadzor environmental watchdog deputy head Oleg Mitvol disagreed with optimistic Chinese estimates and said the progress of the benzene flow was just hampered by ice. After the bulk of the spill passed down the Amur, its residues are expected to remain frozen until spring, he argued. At that time, floods could carry them into the plains, polluting soil for years to come, according to Mitvol. He also pledged to continue monitoring the Amur's waters until the end of 2006.

Mitvol happened to be the only high-profile Russian official who remained consistent in his criticism of China's handling the benzene pollution. Last November, Mitvol accused the Chinese authorities of providing unreliable information about the movement of the spill.

Other Russian officials appeared to have reviewed their opinions over the benzene spill. For instance, during January talks in Moscow, Viktor Shudegov, head of the committee for environment, education and science of the Russian Federation Council, came up with a reconciliatory suggestion to draft bills in both Russia and China about obligatory insurance of environmentally hazardous facilities.

Incidentally, Shudegov was among those Russian officials who had indicated plans to seek compensation from China in international courts. Russia would request that China pay for damages, knowing that it would not do so voluntarily, he said last November (RIA-Novosti, November 25). Yet soon after the spill reached the Russian border, Russian officials stopped arguing that Russia is entitled to compensation from China.

On January 18, the Chinese mission held talks with a group of Russian officials headed by Nikita Bantsenkin, international department head, and Alexander Ishkov, state policy department head of Russia's Natural Resources Ministry. Chinese officials reportedly informed their Russian counterparts about their findings concerning the benzene pollution. Following the talks, Russian officials opted not to question the Chinese findings. "Spring floods will not entail further nitrobenzene pollution," the ministry said in a statement, citing Chinese information (Interfax, January 20).

Earlier in January, the spill itself passed Russia's major Far Eastern urban centre Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Benzene pollution levels in the Amur River remained within permitted levels, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said on January 6. Subsequently, the spill proceeded through scarcely populated plains until it reached the Pacific in the Sea of Okhotsk.

Last November, the Emergency Situations Ministry officials in Khabarovsk region expected that the pollution level in the Amur could have exceeded permissible norms by 7-10 times. Russian officials, however, subsequently reviewed their estimates and said that contamination from benzene spill dissipated to near or below permissible levels. Yuri Garbuz, head of Epidemiology center of the Khabarovsk region, said on December 23 that the Amur water was polluted by nitrobenzene, xylene and ethylbenzene, but he reiterated that the pollution near Khabarovsk was well below permitted norms.

As the spill moved toward Russian shores, top level officials in both Russia and China agreed to damage control measures. In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao agreed to jointly tackle the chemical spill and work more closely to protect the environment in the future. They met on the sidelines of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) forum in Kuala Lumpur on December 13. Wen reportedly apologized for the chemical plant accident.

Putin dispatched Emergency Situations minister Sergei Shoigu to the Far East on December 14 in order to deal with a possible emergency in Khabarovsk region. Shoigu announced in Khabarovsk on December16 that the region was prepared to tackle the pollution. However, he declined to describe the development as an "emergency" or "emergency situation." He said that declaring a state of emergency was out of the question.

Russian and Chinese authorities also signed an agreement December 12 to jointly monitor the waters of the Amur River (known as Heilongjiang in China) for benzene contamination. According to the agreement, signed in Khabarovsk by deputy governor of Khabarovsk region Guennady Pocherevin and head of international relations of China's environmental agency Sui Qinhua, both sides would take up to 72 water samples per day. All samples would be divided into 3 parts: one for each side plus a control sample for a possible arbitration, the agreement says.

Meanwhile, there has been no talk of any international arbitration between the two nations. For instance, Viktor Ishayev, governor of Khabarovsk region, just hinted at compensation claims by saying on December 16 that the region would spend 200 million rubles (about USD $7million) to deal with the benzene slick. Yet he was promptly corrected by Kamil Iskhakov, President Putin's special envoy in the Russian Far East, who said December 16 that the actual damage should be assessed first before claiming compensation from China.

Russia and China thus appear to be keen not to allow the benzene slick to become an issue in bilateral relations. The Chinese authorities came up with damage-control moves, including a formal apology to Russia for the spill. In response, Russian officials have stopped talk of compensation, at least in public.

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Sunday, January 22, 2006

China proposes fewer dams in project to aid environment

BEIJING - A government environmental review has recommended reducing the number of dams included in a controversial hydropower proposal on the Nu River in southwestern China to limit environmental damage and decrease the number of people who would be resettled, a Hong Kong newspaper has reported.The newspaper, Wen Wei Po, which has ties to the Communist Party, reported that the recommendation called for four dams instead of the 13 in the original Nu proposal.

The article, citing an unnamed source close to the governmental review, said fewer dams would still meet "the needs for economic development and environmental protection."

The project has been delayed for nearly two years, and it will be presented to the National Development and Reform Commission, a powerful government ministry, and later to the State Council, or China's Cabinet.

However, the article also suggested that the 13 dams had not been completely ruled out. The source described the four dams as "a pilot proposal" and said more study would be needed to assess the larger project.

The original Nu River proposal, which would generate more electricity than the huge Three Gorges Dam, has become an international controversy.

Environmental groups inside and outside China have called for more openness and public input in deciding whether to go forward on the project.

The government has refused to release the report cited by the Hong Kong newspaper and has not yet called any hearings

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Finding solutions to 'white pollution'

By Chen Zhiyong (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-21 07:09

In this fast-paced world, the convenience of eating take-out and using single-use tableware draws in more and more people.

But despite their handiness, the plastic bags and foam plastic food containers have been associated with "white pollution," because they are non-degradable.

Still, packaging experts have recently said it's not the products alone that are to blame for the environmental pollution. The public needs to examine their own conducts and enforce strict codes in these products' production, disposal and recycling.

Starting in early 1980s, cheap, sanitary and food-preserving containers made of Styrofoam, a major type of foam plastics, won favour among Chinese people. It became widely used on trains and in the fast food industry.

However, people's environmental awareness did not keep up with rapidly increasing production of Styrofoam packaging.

It was common for people to toss the containers after using them, resulting in white disposable tableware littered everywhere, many piling up along the railways and floating in the rivers.

Such unpleasant terms as "the white Great Wall" and "white blanket" are often used to describe the messy scenes throughout cities.

"When the wind was blowing hard in those days, you could see plastic bags sail over the sky and hang up on the trees," recalled He Jiaxing, a veteran packaging expert and honorary director of China Green Packaging Association.

Eventually, people started to become concerned more about white pollution.

In 1991, experts from the packaging industry gathered for the first time to discuss strategies for recycling to alleviate the environmental hazard.

Later, the State Environmental Protection Administration advocated recycling when dealing with plastic waste.

But because Styrofoam was hard to collect and took up a lot space, and some companies began to produce eco-friendly single-use tableware, the government decided to adopt a drastic action against Styrofoam.

In 1999, the former State Economic and Trade Commission, China's top economic supervisor, declared that the production and use of disposable Styrofoam tableware would be no longer tolerated.

From that time on, dozens of cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu and Xi'an, have imposed local restrictions on the sale and use of Styrofoam tableware.

Six years after the ban, Li Peisheng, deputy director of Beijing Recycling Economy Research Institute, led an investigation team to research the current status of disposable tableware market. From June 1 and August 17 last year, the team visited 11 cities in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces, as well as Beijing and Shanghai.

"The ban, in a way, has promoted public awareness of environmental protection. But on the other hand, the production of Styrofoam actually cannot be banned and still contributes to a majority of one-off tableware market share," said Li.

Up to 70 per cent of the nearly 12 billion disposable snack boxes of various kinds are made of Styrofoam.

In Shanghai, the share exceeds 95 per cent.

"The total sales of plastic tableware have increased over the amount before the ban. Its low cost supports a strong demand among food suppliers in the market and makes it hard for the catering service people to give them up," said Li.

Stumbling eco-friendly tableware

In the wake of the dilemma over disposable packaging, alternatives have been encouraged.

The new packaging mainly applies natural or renewable raw materials and is engineered to be biodegradable.

Now four types of eco-friendly substitutes are available in the market, made from paperboard, rice husk, straw and starch respectively.

But Li's investigation team found that most of these enterprises are struggling to survive.

In Guangdong Province, 16 enterprises are producing eco-friendly tableware in 2000, but four years later, only five remained and the rest closed down owing to financial plight.

In 2002, the total sales number of eco-friendly tableware in the whole country was two-fifths that of Styrofoam's.

Generally it has been discovered that consumers and suppliers are reluctant to pay for biodegradable containers that cost several times more. Also, their mechanical properties, sanitary quality and temperature preservation ability are inferior to Styrofoam ones.

But most importantly, the biodegradable label may also be sending a misleading message. The products bearing the label are, in fact, just partially degradable within years, according to Tang Saizhen, senior engineer of China Light Industry Information Center and also a degradable plastics expert.

Some of these "new" products actually contain more water or oil-resistant substances, the latter of which are not easily degradable under natural conditions. Starch-type packaging, especially, will not rot away when packed into the garbage pile, because it only degrades in the sunshine.

"So if discarded everywhere, the so-called biodegradable tableware can also cause white pollution," said Tang.

At the same time, the quality of some degradable tableware is worrisome, she noted.

In order to save production cost in the ever-competitive market, some firms are adding more of the chemical product CaCo3 into their biodegradable containers, which can potentially contaminate food.

The production of eco-friendly substitutes can also be problematic. The process of producing paperboard tableware generates waste water and gas, which poses a more serious pollution to the environment than the waste products themselves, according to Tang.

"At present, Styrofoam tableware is still the best choice within the one-off packaging family, when concerning safety, quality, price and recycling as a whole," she argued.

However, Tang believes that the biodegradable alternatives should eventually replace Styrofoam when the new technologies clean up their production process and lower their costs.

Shanghai as role model

Besides further improving the quality of degradable one-off tableware, both Li and Tang pointed out that recycling and reprocessing used Styrofoam, rather than completely banning its production, is an important strategy to eliminate white pollution.

After the government issued the ban on Styrofoam tableware, only Shanghai took a moderate attitude toward it.

In addition to gradually cutting production of Styrofoam, the city required its producers and dealers to pay extra money, which is used to subsidize garbage collectors, reprocessing factory, relative management department and garbage transport.

Now in Shanghai, a comprehensive network has been established to collect the white pollution, which is then delivered to a reprocessing factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, and a waste utilization centre in Putuo District.

More than 70 per cent of used plastic tableware has been recovered in the city.

Plastics experts previously believed Styrofoam tableware could not be recycled because it is susceptible to hard-to-clean grease stains.

"But now the technical difficulties have already been tackled. Also, the water used to clean the boxes can be recyclable," said Tang.

The plastics from used containers can produce plastic granules, which are used as raw materials for hard plastic products like rulers, buttons and cups.

Five years after the city issued the management guidelines on one-off tableware in 2000, its visual pollution to the city has been largely reduced.

When Li's investigation team went to local communities, they rarely saw the discarded one-off food containers.

"The successful story demonstrated that recycling and reprocessing is a good and feasible strategy to eliminate white pollution," said Li.

According to Tang, some Western countries had also once tried to ban the production of Styrofoam containers, but the idea turned out to be unrealistic. Enforced recycling proved to be a much better policy.

"Enhancing the recycling, supplemented by improving degradable packaging, should be the future direction of dealing with one-off tableware pollution," said Tang.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

8 bln yuan earmarked for clean drinking water in rural areas

BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- The central government will invest 8 billion yuan (1 billion U.S. dollars) in 2006 to tackle drinking water shortages and drinking water safety issues for 20 million Chinese living in rural areas.

central government will provide about 4 billion yuan and the local governments will provide the rest," an official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said here Tuesday.

Chinese government's comprehensive measures include providing clean water, protecting the environment and giving hygiene education to rural residents. The aim is to ensure the safety of the drinking water supply for Chinese living in rural areas.

NDRC, the Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Health are working on a drinking water safety project for the 11th Five-Year Program (2006-2010).

2000 and 2005, China invested 23.5 billion yuan to solve drinking water issues. About 71 million people in China's vast rural areas have been relieved of drinking water shortages.

to the NDRC, "measures taken to solve drinking water shortages and safety issues have improved the health of Chinese living in the countryside and boosted the economic and social development of China's rural areas."

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Food safety website launched in Shanghai

SHANGHAI, Jan. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Citizens in this east China metropolis can now access information on food safety problems via an authoritative website launched Wednesday.

by the Shanghai municipal food and drug administration, the website at http://www.spaq.sh.cn will provide safety warnings, consumption suggestions, expert advice, demonstration of food safety cases, food science and technology, and relevant rules and regulations, according to officials with the administration.

website, the first authoritative one of its kind in Shanghai, will also regularly publicize a blacklist of unsafe food categories and companies violating rules and regulations in the sector, in an effort to provide a safe living environment for local residents.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006

"Energy policemen" to patrol malls in Beijing

BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- China's capital will employ "energy policemen" to help it improve the efficiency of energy consumption.

"energy policemen" will patrol shopping malls and office buildings in the city, China Daily reported on Wednesday.

with indoor temperatures set too high in winter or buildings having lights on in the daytime will receive fines from these officers over the first half of this year, according to Zhang Mao, vice-mayor of Beijing.

said the municipal government would soon recruit more than 20 dedicated workers to supervise energy efficiency in the city. Supporting regulations will also be made to facilitate the law enforcement.

have been advocating energy saving for years but it has remained only a slogan because of a lack of a supervising system," Zhang was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

added "the energy policemen" would have sufficient authority to order bosses to carry out their instructions and to issue penalty notices.

the past, violators were not obliged to abide by similar instructions, Zhang said.

summer, city leaders advised large buildings to keep air-conditioning temperatures above 26 C to save electricity.

the coming five years, Beijing plans to reduce the energy and water consumption per 10,000 yuan (1,233 U.S. dollars) GDP by 15 percent and 20 percent respectively, by 2010 compared with 2005.

currently consumes 0.81 standard tons of coal and 51 cubic meters of water per 10,000 yuan GDP, already much lower than the national average level, according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006

China's West Development Requires Heavy Investment

BEIJING, Jan 17 Asia Pulse - China's west development drive is estimated to need a total of 20.9 trillion yuan (US$2.59 trillion) in the coming decade, according to a report, entitled Survey on Reform of Financial System in China's West Development.

The report was a result of 1.5-years joint research conducted by China's central bank and the Japan International Cooperation Association (JICA). The research covered various sectors of west China including finance, taxes, industries, legal system and policy, with focus on funds needed by various construction projects, and their forms and channels of financing.

The Chinese Government has kept on pouring money in the west development. In the 2001-2004 period, financial institutions issues Renminbi loans amounting to 3.14 trillion yuan in the 12 provinces, autonomous regions and municipality in west China, accounting for 16.4 per cent of the national total issued loans. Of the total, 1.66 trillion yuan were long and medium term loan, 19.69 per cent of the national total, and soaring 403 per cent over the end of 1998. The country injects 160 billion yuan in improvement of ecological environment in west China in 2001-2004. Under the credit support of banks, west part of China achieved 9.4 per cent, 10.3 per cent, 12.3 per cent and 12.45 per cent in GDP in recent years, respectively, higher than that of the national GDP.

But the biggest difficulty facing west China is still the shortage of funds. The research worked out with concrete figures. In the 2006-2015 period, the area will need a total of 20.9 trillion yuan, of which 10.02 trillion yuan will be for reproduction, 1.09 trillion yuan for development of agriculture; 0.17 trillion yuan for rural small loans, and 2.01 trillion yuan for construction of industrial infrastructure facilities.

By comparison, the report suggests founding of an independent west development fund, which will be the best solution, with the capital funds from allocation of the Ministry of Finance, and most of the practical work shall be done by the State Development Bank.

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Pollution, No.1 "killer" of world heritage grottoes site

TAIYUAN, Jan. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Air pollution-triggered weathering is the No.1 "killer" of the 1,500-year-old Yungang Grottoes in north China's Shanxi Province, investigation shows.

experts of the research institute for Yungang Grottoes found excess dust and sulfur dioxide, the industrial leftover often found in the air of Shanxi, a major coal producer in China, have sped up the natural weathering for the grottoes, said Dr. Huang Jizhong, deputy director of the institute.

dust sticks to the Buddhist statues, eroding the statues under a complex power of sunshine, wind and rain," said Huang, who warns on Monday that the statues might lose their original look ina short time without timely countermeasures.

Yungang Grottoes, 16 kilometers west of the city of Datong,were hewn from the cliffs in a honeycomb pattern and stretch for a kilometer from east to west.

of the grottoes began around 460 A.D. in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Within four decades, 1,000 grottoes and 100,000 Buddhist statues were completed together with large numbers of niches and colorful decorations.

Yungang Grottoes have been extensively damaged over the centuries. At least 1,400 Buddhist statues were stolen and shipped out of the country.

about 51,000 statues remain in the grottoes, the largest at 17 meters high and the smallest two centimeters. The Yungang Grottoes were included in the World Heritage list in 2001.

protect the precious cultural relics, Shanxi has 100 millionyuan (12.5 million U.S. dollars) to improve infrastructure and environment around the Yungang Grottoes by demolishing and removing the unsightly buildings from scenic areas and planting trees.
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Monday, January 16, 2006

Ice Thaw Could Create New Toxic Slick in China - UN

CHINA: January 16, 2006 Via Reuters

BEIJING - The spring thaw could release more toxins into the water from a Chinese chemical explosion last year, the United Nations said in a report, adding China should carry out random checks to prevent a recurrence.

An explosion at a chemical plant in northeastern China in November released a poisonous slick which contaminated the drinking supplies of millions of people and raised alarm bells in nearby Russia.

Though water supplies have resumed, the melting ice and snow could cause pollution problems when chemicals thaw, the UN Environment Programme said.

"Great care must be taken in the spring when the ice thaws out," the UN body said in a report released on Thursday, which followed a trip to northeast China.

"The frozen pollutants in the ice will become liquid and gas and the denser liquid that may have stayed in the bottom layer upstream may become mobile as the water flow increases," it said.

But the official China Daily on Friday downplayed the chances of a new toxic slick, quoting officials as saying that even if some chemicals were released, the level would not be high enough to force water supplies to be cut off again.

The UNEP said it was ready to help China deal with the aftermath of the accident, and to help stop such disasters from happening in the future.

"An analysis of the internal risk management practices of industry should be undertaken through a random sample of industries," the report added, saying both China and Russia should provide access to independent sampling.

The report also criticised China for its slow initial response to dealing with the crisis in the Songhua River.

"Available information showed unverified media information and initial lack of proper communication from government authorities had caused some panic," it said.

China has vowed to get tough on pollution and has ordered local authorities to inform the central government directly there are any environmental crises.

China's top environmental minister resigned after the accident and a vice mayor in charge of evacuating the city where the explosion occurred was said to have hanged himself.

But the United Nations said its mission was not allowed to visit the accident site, could not take its own samples and only made it to the area four weeks after the disaster.

"By this time, it was hard to find out when certain measures had started and what response time various actors required," the report said.

A request to include a public health expert in their investigation team was not accepted, the United Nations said, asking that the World Health Organisation be allowed to help monitor drinking water quality in the region.

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Sunday, January 15, 2006

Can our planet support the rise of China and India?

Environmentalists are warning about the impact of the economic booms underway in the world's most populous nations

DPA , WASHINGTON
Sunday, Jan 15, 2006,Page 9 Via Taipei Times

`Some critics might find the worries of these US environmentalists hypocritical, since the US is still the greatest burner of oil, using 25 percent of global annual supplies and producing 25 percent of carbon emissions.'


Ten years ago, the world was worried that China would not be able to feed itself in the new millenium.

Now that the growing giant has defied all predictions and China can largely feed itself, there are new headaches.

Two of Washington's leading environmental think tanks warned recently that the economic boom in the emerging industrial giants of China and India could present one of the world's gravest threats yet to the environment.

The two countries together have 2.5 billion people, or nearly 40 percent of the world's population of 6.5 billion.

China now eats up just under one-third of the world's rice, over one-quarter of the world's steel and nearly half of its cement, the Worldwatch Institute says in its "2006 State of the World" report released on Wednesday.

The Earth simply cannot supply these countries' rising demands for energy, food, and raw materials, which are already having "ripple effects worldwide," Worldwatch president Christopher Flavin said.

Lester Brown, author of the 1995 book Who will feed China?, president of the Earth Policy Institute and founder of World-watch, agrees.

"Though [China] doesn't admit it yet, the US model won't work for China. And if it does not work for China, it will not work for India," Brown said at the release of his new book, Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.

The use of oil has doubled in India since 1992, while China went from near self-sufficiency in the mid-1990s to becoming the world's second largest importer in 2004, the Worldwatch report says.

Prices worldwide have soared as India and China scooped up shares in oil companies around the world.

Some critics might find the worries of these US environmentalists hypocritical, since the US is still the greatest burner of oil, using 25 percent of global annual supplies and producing 25 percent of carbon emissions.

The US also has the largest ecological footprint. The average US citizen requires about 9.7 hectares to provide consumable resources and space for waste, an amount that is 205 percent of what the country can provide within its borders.

That figure is only 1.6 hectares for the average Chinese person, or 201 per cent of the country's capacity, and 0.8 hectares for the average Indian, or 210 per cent of the country's capacity.

On the positive side, Worldwatch pointed out that both India and China have ambitious programs to use renewable energies.

China's congress passed an "ambitious" renewable energy law that comes into force this month. The country has been a pioneer in the use of small wind turbines, hydro-generators and biogas plants, the institute said.

India now has the world's fourth largest wind power industry and aims to raise its share of renewable energies to 20 to 25 percent of power generation, according to Worldwatch.

Still, Siva Yam, president of the US-China Chamber of Commerce in Chicago, sees one major hindrance for sustainable development in Asia.

"The world is getting smaller and it's a very competitive market," Yam said. "Paying more attention to the environment would disadvantage China against its competitors, for example India."

"China already has extensive laws protecting the environment, the problem lies in enforcing regulations. Local authorities just don't enforce them," he added.

The World Wildlife Fund's director for climate change, Hans Verolme, however supports the view that China is on the right track.

"Both nations are signatories of the Kyoto Protocol, but as developing nations they are exempted from cutting their emissions. However, China has already taken voluntary measures which have had a very positive impact," Verholme said.

Referring to last year's gathering on global warming in Canada, Verholme said: "What we saw in Montreal now was that while China came forward with measures it has taken to improve environmental sustainability, the US did not."
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Friday, January 13, 2006

WIND POWER PROJECT PLANNED FOR CHINA'S QINGDAO

Friday January 13, 2006, 3:24 pm

BEIJING, Jan 13 Asia Pulse - China will construct Asia's largest wind turbines in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, in collaboration with Germany.

According to the plan, five wind turbines with a capability of five megawatts each will be installed in the sea offshore from Qingdao. They will serve as power generating units for the maritime events of the 2008 Olympic Games to be held in Qingdao, China Daily reported Friday.

An exhibition centre will also be set up nearby to provide information on environmental protection.

The six projects, to be signed at the three-day Second Sino-German Forum on Environment that opened Thursday in Qingdao, will cost nearly US$121 million.

The forum attracted representatives from economic and environmental protection circles of the two countries. It will highlight issues surrounding sustainable development and a circular economy, Zhu Guangyao, vice-minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration, was quoted as saying.

He said Germany is well-known for its advanced technology and rich management experience in the fields of renewable energy and a circular economy.

Report by UNEP field mission to China emphasizes more cooperation

Jan. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- The UN Environment Program (UNEP) stands ready to assist the Chinese authorities in taking forward recommendations relating to the recent chemical spill disaster in China and measures to reduce the risk of a similar incident in the future, the UN agency said on Thursday.

number of forward-looking recommendations have resulted from the UNEP field mission to China following the chemical spill incident, UNEP said in a statement.

disaster was caused by a chemical plant explosion in Jilin province, northeast China, on November 13, which heavily polluted a regional river called the Songhua River. The major pollutants from the accident had been identified as benzene, aniline and nitrobenzene.

four-person UNEP team visited China from December 10 to 16,2005, at the invitation of the Chinese State Environmental Protection Administration. The mission followed the chemical explosion at the Jilin Petrochemical plant in Jilin province and subsequent pollution of the Songhua River.

UNEP team was also invited to visit affected sites on the Songhua River and to meet and discuss the incident with local and national Chinese officials, said the UNEP statement, which was released Thursday.

by both UNEP and the Chinese government, the report from the four-person UNEP team notes that lessons learnt from the incident should be incorporated into policy, legislation and enforcement. China and UNEP have agreed to share this report with the relevant Russian authorities.

to the future, the report suggests that the Chinese authorities might wish to consider implementing a program such as UNEP's own Awareness and Preparedness for Emergencies at Local Level, which aims to boost the coordination of local communities to an environmental emergency, and has proven to be an effective contribution to the risk reduction of industrial accidents.

report further recommends the consideration of a risk assessment of a random sample of Chinese chemical factories in order to strengthen safety related procedures, to minimize the risk of accidents and the improved handling of accidents if they do occur.

the team was impressed by the Chinese commitment to regular and systematic pollution monitoring, the sharing of results and other information and their cooperation with Russian experts and the UNEP team itself," said the statement.

December, UNEP had expressed satisfaction and appreciation for the timely and efficient measures taken by the Chinese government in responding to the river pollution crisis in northeast China, saying it's ready to offer necessary help.

Songhua River, in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, suffered major water pollution as a result of a blast that had occurred in the China National Petroleum Corporation's Jilin Petrochemical company on November 13. The crisis has been brought under control, according to the Chinese authorities.
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Lessons from China’s chemical plant blast

Lessons from China’s chemical plant blast should influence policy – UN agency

12 January 2006 – The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said today that lessons learned from dealing with November’s explosion at a petrochemical plant in northeastern China, which caused major river pollution, should influence government policy.

This conclusion is one of several contained in a report from a four-person team of UNEP experts who visited the area last month to examine the blast at the Jilin Petrochemical Corporation and its polluting effects on the Songhua River. In its report, the team called for knowledge gained from the incident to be incorporated into policy, legislation and enforcement.

The Songhua River merges with another river and forms a natural border with the Russian Federation to eventually flow into the Sea of Okhotsk. China and UNEP “have agreed to share this report with the relevant Russian authorities,” the Kenyan-based agency said in a news release.

The UNEP report described 13 November 2004 Songhua river spill as “probably one of the largest transboundary chemical spill incidents in a river system in recent years.” It stressed that the accident has “major transboundary and international significance” and suggested that both China and Russia provide access to “independent and impartial” sampling and chemical analysis of the spill.

During the initial phase after the explosion, the Government’s “communication and information sharing with the general public was not adequate enough to ensure appropriate responses of the affected population,” UNEP’s report said, pointing out that the agency’s programmes aimed at preparing for local emergencies might prove useful in China.

The report also praised a recently established joint monitoring programme between China and Russia, calling it “an encouraging step in further multilateral cooperation on shared water resources.”

UNEP said it was ready to assist the Chinese authorities further, in relation to both the current spill and with measures to reduce the risk of a similar incident in the future.

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Thursday, January 12, 2006

China water supplies: A continuing threat

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2006

Two recent chemical spills have forced officials in different regions of China to take emergency precautions to protect water supplies for millions of people - the latest examples of the environmental and public health threats posed by industrial pollution.

The new spills were reported in the past week along the Yellow River in northern China and on a tributary of the Yangtze River in southern China's Hunan Province.

The incidents came barely a month after a benzene spill on the Songhua River forced the provincial capital of Harbin to shut off the water supply to its 3.8 million residents. That spill became an international scandal because officials in northeastern China initially tried to hide the problem.

The domestic media coverage of the two recent spills suggests that the Songhua scandal has created pressure on local governments to stop concealing such potentially dangerous incidents. But some experts also believe that the flurry of news coverage is merely revealing how common such accidents have become.

"These things happen all the time, all over the place, probably on a weekly basis," said Elizabeth Economy, the author of "The River Runs Black," a recent book on China's environmental issues.

Unquestionably, water pollution is an extreme problem in China. Government studies show that 70 percent of the country's lakes and waterways are polluted. Earlier this year, a vice minister for water resources estimated that 360 million rural residents lacked safe drinking water. Water pollution also has been blamed for high cancer rates in villages along several Chinese waterways.

Local officials responding to the two new spills say neither has forced shutdowns of municipal water systems.

In Hunan Province, a spill occurred Jan. 4 in the industrial city of Zhuzhou after workers cleaning up a waste-water ditch mistakenly diverted the sewage water into the nearby Xiangjiang River.

The water was laced with cadmium, which has been linked to neurological disorders and cancer. Initial water quality tests showed that cadmium levels in the river were at least 25 times above the safety standard.

Last month, a different cadmium spill on the Beijiang River in Guangdong Province threatened water supplies to millions of people and forced some temporary water supply shutdowns in the densely populated region.

In Hunan, Jiang Yimin, head of the provincial environmental protection bureau, said that officials had used neutralizing chemicals to dilute the toxicity. He said the 100-kilometer, or 60-mile, slick has already flowed past the provincial capital of Changsha without a problem.

The city draws its drinking water from the Xiangjiang, and Jiang said that tests initially showed that cadmium levels at city intake pipes were five times above the national safety standard.

But Jiang said the water was treated at municipal water quality plants so that it would be safe for public consumption. Jiang said the toxicity of the river water had now dropped to the point that it met quality standards.

He also denied a report in China Youth Daily, a Beijing-based newspaper, which accused Hunan officials of intentionally playing down the levels of contamination to prevent a public panic.

"All of the downstream cities have met the water quality standard," Jiang said by telephone.

A second major accident occurred Jan. 6 when a spill in Henan Province created a slick of diesel fuel flowing down the Yellow River.

By the time the slick had reached neighboring Shandong Province, state media reported that officials had shut down 63 pumping stations along the river, including in the provincial capital of Jinan. Officials in Jinan said the city would instead depend on water from reservoirs.

Meanwhile, a smaller spill was reported Jan. 6 in central China along the Qijiang River, after a sulfur leak forced communities along the river to go without running water for two days.

The government has made it plain that it does not want to repeat the mistakes made during the Songhua spill. This week officials announced plans to spend an additional $3 billion to clean up the river.

Last Sunday, the State Council, or China's cabinet, announced a new national emergency response plan, partly in response to the Songhua controversy. This plan requires that natural disasters, major accidents and other incidents threatening public health should be reported to the State Council within four hours.

The plan also requires that the public should be given timely and accurate information through the Chinese media.

Economy, the author, applauded the idea of a faster, more public response but said it did not represent a response to the country's overall water pollution problem. She noted that illegal dumping into rivers was an enormous problem and that environmental officials lacked the political power to stop it.

Indeed, the Xiangjiang River suffered such serious pollution problems even before the spill last week that local legislative delegates have complained that normal discharges of cadmium into the river have long exceeded national standards.


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Officials battling Xiangjiang River pollution

By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-11 05:47

ZHUZHOU, Hunan Province: Toxic chemicals continue to threaten the safety of drinking water in the downstream regions of the Xiangjiang River, said local environmental officials.

After nearly a week of clean-up efforts, data still shows a level of cadmium still over the safety standards in certain areas, said Qu Lili, deputy head of environmental bureau in the downstream city of Xiangtan.

But Qu ruled out the media report that claimed cadmium levels of tap water in the city had surpassed the national safety standard two days after the spill.

"It's true that our water resources have been polluted, but our tap water has remained clean due to emergency chemical treatment," Qu said.

Cadmium, an industrial chemical that can cause neurological disorders and cancer, flooded into the Xiangjiang River during an unofficial silt-cleaning project started on January 4.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

China to develop new technology to protect environment

BEIJING, 01/10 Via AngolaPress- A Chinese environmentalist said Tuesday that China is urged to develop new environmental-protection technology so as to improve living condition and build an energy-efficient society.

"Many environmental problems expect to be solved with the help of newly-emerging technology," said Sun Honglie, geographer and academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Sun said China lacks original innovation concerning research on environmental-protection technology for China`s serious environmental problem.

Official statistics show that economic losses caused by environmental pollution accounts for 3 to 8 percent of China`s annual GDP.

Chinese President Hu Jintao said Monday at the opening ceremony of the China`s Fourth National Conference on Science and Technology, "Priority should be given to the development of environmental-protection technology to lessen pollution`s impact on economic and social development."

The Chinese government is to set the target of quadrupling 2000`s GDP by 2020, which means China has to develop at an annual growth rate of 7.2 percent in the next 15 years.

Therefore, Sun said, it is necessary for China to change its development mode to balance economic development and environment protection.

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Beijiang River cleared of pollution

GUANGZHOU, Jan. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- The water quality of Beijiang River returned to a safe drinking standard as of Tuesday, three weeks after the river in south China was polluted by excessive cadmium discharge from a smelting works, a local environmental authority said.

examination showed that the cadmium density in the entire watercourse in Guangdong Province dropped within the national standard of 0.01mg/L, a safety level for drinking, according to the provincial environmental protection bureau.

has taken various measures, including closing 14 smelting works, adding iron or aluminium polymer into the river to induce cadmium sedimentation and discharging water to dilute the toxic pollutant and to purify the river after it was polluted on Dec. 15 in 2005.

and environment protection staffs will continue to monitor the water quality of the river to ensure safe water use for riverside residents.

a soft, bluish-white metallic element occurring primarily in zinc, copper and lead ores, can cause liver and kidney damage and lead to bone diseases when ingested.
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China faces severe ocean pollution

BEIJING, Jan. 11 -- China's ocean environment, especially the shallow waters just off the coast, has been severely polluted by an increasing run-off of contaminants into the sea. A report released by China's State Oceanic Administration says the country is faced with severe challenges in handling the pollution of the ocean.

report, China's Oceanic Environment Quality 2005, says that the ocean has been polluted by a harmful algal bloom, a sudden, massive growth of microscopic and macroscopic plant life.

is estimated that last year there were over 80 incidents of algal blooms in the shallow waters off China's coast, leading to direct economic losses of nearly 8.6 million US dollars.

spokesperson for the State Oceanic Administration, Li Chunxian, says a run off of pollutants from the land is the source of the contamination.

run-off of pollutants from the land is heavy. That causes the deterioration of ecological system in the ocean, rivers, bays and wetlands. The pollutants contain substances that aid the growth of harmful algae. The excessive run-off of pollutants also damages the ecosystems of coral reefs."

addition, algal blooms cause fish to die by lowering the oxygen concentration of the water.

the past five years, China has seen increased contamination of the ocean. The total amount of waste water flowing into the ocean was over 31 billion tons, 9.6 billion tons more than in 2000.

severe pollution has attracted the attention of environmental protection authorities. Many provinces and regions have adopted measures, including control on the run-off of pollutants and strengthening the monitoring of sea pollution.

a city in east China, has been actively working on controlling pollution of the ocean. Jiang Qingchun is an official working in this area.

oceans have a limited capacity to absorb pollution. Now we have less and less fish and the ocean environment is deteriorating. We cannot endlessly exploit the oceans any more. We should protect them. And we also cannot pour rubbish into the ocean indiscriminately any more."

adds that it is difficult for oceans to recover from pollution, and so the pressing task is to reduce pollution in the future.

present, China cannot recycle all the pollutants it produces due to lagging recycling facilities and poor environmental awareness in some areas.

the authorities have pledged to make more efforts to improve this situation.
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Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Cleaning up Songhua River is a priority

By Li Fangchao (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-10 06:07

HARBIN: Top Chinese environmental protection officials have listed water pollution control in the Songhua River's drainage area as one of the key water pollution control and prevention projects in the country. It is soliciting suggestions for a five-year plan concerning the control of the river's pollution from 2006 to 2010.

This is the first time the Songhua River's pollution has been raised as a key project, in the same category as the pollution control of China's "three rivers and three lakes," which includes the Huaihe River, the Haihe River, the Liaohe River, the Dianchi Lake, the Chaohu Lake and the Taihu Lake. These water systems are some of China's most heavily polluted.

About 100 tons of dangerous chemicals equivalent to 10 tanker-truck loads was spewed into the Songhua River, which supplies water to Harbin, the nation's environment watchdog disclosed yesterday.
A stretch of potentially lethal polluted river water headed towards one of China's biggest cities on Thursday after an explosion at a petrochemical plant, November 24 2005. [newsphoto]

Over the weekend, Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Environment Protection Administration (SEPA), vowed that the goal of the project is "to let all people drink clean water," Xinhua News Agency reports.

A draft of a control plan for the Songhua River's drainage area is currently being worked on by experts and will be announced to the public once it receives approval from the State Council, according to Li Jieshi, an official from the Heilongjiang Environment Protection Bureau.

The draft says that protection priority will be given to the water sources of large and medium sized cities along the Songhua River, along with the ultimate ecological goal of a healthy standard of clean water in each river section.

A primary goal in the draft is to ensure that more than 90 per cent of the population living within the drainage area of the Songhua River will have clean drinking water by 2010.

The draft also put forward the demand to improve urban sewage systems in each city with a population over 200,000, in the next five years.

It hopes that by 2010 at least 60 per cent of urban waste water and 95 per cent of industrial waste water will be processed in order to reach a certain environmental standard before discharge.

The Songhua River in Northeast China is the largest tributary of the Heilong River (also known as the Amur River in Russia), flowing 1,927 kilometres from the Changbai Mountains through the Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. The river drains 551,000 square kilometres of land with a population of more than 60 million.

Four cities with populations of over 1 million are located in the drainage area Harbin, Changchun, Jilin and Qiqihar.

A blast at a chemical plant in November last year in Jilin City, Jilin Province, spilled some 100 tons of toxic chemicals (mainly benzene and nitrobenzene) into the Songhua River, forming a toxic slick, which at its peak extended 80 kilometres.

The toxic slick plagued millions of residents living along the downstream sections of the river. Harbin, capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province with an urban population of nearly 4 million, was forced to cut off it's water supply for four days, resulting in huge economic losses.

"I think it is this pollution catastrophe that has prompted the country to make up its mind to thoroughly deal with pollution in the Songhua River," said Li Xinglong, a chief engineer from the Heilongjiang Environment Protection Science Research Institute, who took part in the draft's suggestion-soliciting meeting in Harbin last Sunday.

The draft stated that a preliminary budget used for the pollution control of the Songhua River will come to 26.6 billion yuan (US$ 3.28 billion), the Beijing Youth Daily reported last Sunday.

Officials from the SEPA did not confirm the sum and said it needs a "further check."

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More pollution gloom for China

By Sam Bond (9 January 2006) ,As China braces itself for the impact of the third major spill of toxic pollutants in recent months, state officials have announced a multi-billion pound budget to combat river pollution over the next five years. The latest incident occurred on the Xiangjiang River in Hunan province in could affect over seven million people. It happened when a large amount of cadmium was washed into the river during the routine clean up of a smelting plant. At the time of the spill on January 4 state news service Xinhua reported that the cadmium levels were 25.6 times over safe limits. Downstream the river supplies a series of major towns and cities with drinking water. Following the accident the clean-up operation involved the deployment of booms to contain the spill, addition of chemicals to neutralise the cadmium and the opening of a dam to dilute the contaminated waters. Chinese officials say downstream drinking water has not been unduly affected by the spill and standard water treatment plants are still providing safe, potable water. Cadmium is a particularly nasty heavy metal and exposure can lead to a raft of ill effects, damaging the liver, kidneys and intestinal tract and it has also been linked to lung and prostate cancer. In an apparently unrelated move, the Chinese Government announced this week a massive spending plan to reduce river pollution at the Songhua basin, scene of November's widely-covered benzene spill (see related story). The plan will see 26.6 billion Yuan (over £2b) spent on water treatment facilities, with major cities along the lengthy river given priority. Over 60 million people depend on the river for their water supply and the Chinese authorities claim the funding will provide safe drinking water and sanitary conditions for at least 90% of the riparian population.

China's Hunan Battles Toxic Spill in Yangtze Branch (Update2)

Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Local authorities in China's Hunan province are cleaning up a toxic spill from the nation's biggest zinc smelter that polluted a tributary of the Yangtze River, at least the third such incident in the past three months.

Cadmium, an industrial chemical that can cause neurological disorders and cancer, flooded into the Xiangjiang river during a silt-cleaning project started without official approval, the provincial environmental protection bureau said on its Web site yesterday. A spokesman for Zhuzhou Smelter said it isn't responsible for the accident and the plant is operating normally.

The cadmium level in the polluted stretch of river peaked at 25.6 times the safe standard on Jan. 5 before falling to 0.14 times on Saturday after the local government used neutralizing chemicals and turned up the flow of water from upstream reservoirs to dilute the toxins, according to the statement.

``The government has controlled the pollution and there has been no public panic,'' Jiang Yimin, head of the bureau, said in the statement. Drinking water supplies from plants in Xiangtan city near the site of the spill all met safety standards as of Jan. 7, the bureau said.

Seven out of 10 Chinese rivers are contaminated by toxins, according to the official Xinhua news agency. A nitrobenzene spill in the northeastern province of Jilin in November caused authorities to turn off the tap water of more than three million people, threatened supplies in neighboring Russia and prompted the resignation of China's environmental chief.

Silt Project

The cadmium spill in Hunan province polluted a 100-kilometer stretch of the Xiangjiang river, which flows past the provincial capital Changsha into Dongting Lake before entering the Yangtze, China's longest river, the state-run China Daily reported today.

Zhuzhou Water Conservancy Investment Co. on Dec. 23 started the silt-cleaning project without official permission and didn't take proper precautions, the bureau said in its statement.

The spill happened on Jan. 4 after the company built a dam at the mouth of a waste drainage pipe from the Zhuzhou Smelter, according to the bureau. The dammed water flowed into two lakes containing high levels of cadmium from nearby plants before overflowing into the river.

``Zhuzhou Smelter should not be responsible for the toxic spill incident,'' said Yu Feng, a spokesman with Hunan Zhuye Torch Metals Co., the Shanghai-listed owner of Zhuzhou Smelter. Yu said the plant is unlikely to be shut because of the spill.

Zhuye Torch shares rose 4.7 percent to 2.88 yuan at the 3 p.m. close local time on the Shanghai stock exchange.

Toxic Spills

The government will hold a province-wide inspection to stem any potential pollution accidents, the Hunan environmental protection bureau said.

The incident is the second in less than a month involving a zinc smelter. Shenzhen Zhongjin Lingnan Nonfemet Co., the country's third-biggest zinc producer, was ordered to halt output at its Shaoguan Smelter in Guangdong province on Dec. 21 after discharging excessive cadmium into a local river.

The spill prompted Yingde city, which has 100,000 residents on the Beijiang river, to close part of its water supply system for several hours on Dec. 20, the China Daily reported.

Cadmium is extracted during the production of zinc, used to strengthen steel for car bodies, and lead. Cadmium and lead are used in batteries.

China's economic growth, the fastest of any major economy, and an expanding urban population have caused an increase in pollution, aggravating social tensions and bringing the government's environmental management under scrutiny.

Jilin Blast

State Environmental Protection Administration head Xie Zhenhua resigned on Dec. 2 after being criticized by the State Council, the nation's highest ruling body, over the toxic spill in the northeast Songhua River. The spill followed an explosion at a unit of PetroChina Co., the nation's biggest oil company.

The environmental protection bureau ``hasn't paid due importance to the incident, underestimated the bad influence of the incident and should be responsible for the damage,'' state broadcaster China Central Television cited the State Council as saying.

At the same time, the environmental protection bureau criticized local officials for covering up the accident and for ``blind pursuit'' of economic development that has seriously damaged China's environment in the past 25 years.

In a further pollution incident, six tons of diesel leaked from an electricity factory into a branch of the Yellow River in the central province of Henan, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Jan. 6. Cities along the Yellow River have been alerted to be cautious of the water quality, the report said.

China too slow in cleaning environment

10.01.06 By Emma Graham-Harrison
BEIJING - China's environmental woes spilled visibly over its borders as a toxic slick flowed into Russia last month, but exports of pollution are becoming as common as sales of cheap T-shirts for the economic powerhouse. The country's leaders are only starting to grapple with the political fallout at home after years of pursuing economic expansion at almost any price. Dirty or scarce water, choking air and toxic factory effluent are some of the common problems fouling China's environment and that of its neighbours. Yet the international impact of China's problems have barely registered as a cause for concern for Beijing's leadership. It took days for China to notify Russia that an explosion at a petrochemical plant had sent 100 tonnes of benzene compounds pouring down a tributary to the Amur. Smog carried over the Pacific to the west coast of the United States, acid rain in South Korea and Japan, and destruction of forests as far away as Africa - these are among other unwelcome exports that experts say may cloud China's hopes of being seen as a responsible global power. "At the moment, China's top leaders have not realised how important, in terms of international relations, environmental conflicts can be," said Ma Zhong, vice-dean of the School of Environment and Natural Resources at Renmin University. "They are more concerned about economic and social relationships." For China's neighbours, the three are inextricably linked. Leo Horn, an adviser to Britain's Department for International Development, says nearly half the world's population lives in river basins which have their source in China. Among them are some of Asia's great rivers, such as the Mekong and the Indus. Although these have so far escaped the worst of the pollution plaguing domestic waterways such as the Yangtze, Beijing has been feuding with its neighbours for years over plans for dams. Worse may follow. "These are not the most polluted in the country ... but the sheer scale of our economic expansion means that in remote areas, activities will increase and problems will get worse," said Ma Jun, author of the book China's Water Crisis. China's reluctance to sacrifice growth for a cleaner environment causes problems even further away - some of the industrial smog that shrouds its cities drifts over to dirty air along the west coast of the Americas, scientists say. But old attitudes that resources are for fuelling growth, and environmentalism is a bourgeois indulgence, are changing. Leaders have pledged to tackle the country's "grim" environmental situation, put energy efficiency in their economic blueprint for the next five years and weigh the financial cost of pollution. Beijing brought in a ban on most logging in the late 1990s, after deforestation was identified as a key factor behind large-scale floods that affected around one-fifth of the population and cost billions of dollars. It closed off its own forests at a time of growing appetites for wooden products among the newly affluent and an expansion of furniture exports. The combination sent Chinese firms over the border into Myanmar while buyers headed as far afield as Liberia and Indonesia. "China has increased domestic use, increased exports and has few trees it can legally cut - you can do the maths," said Susanne Kempel, campaigner with British NGO Global Witness. "It is essentially exporting its problems of deforestation to countries that often have less control." About a million cubic metres of wood crossed the border illegally last year from areas of northern Myanmar identified as one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. Even when China is not directly harvesting other nations' resources, its companies, scouring the globe for energy and minerals, can wreak havoc with badly managed mines or drilling. But China should not take all the blame for pollution caused by a high level of manufacturing, since many products are destined for Western markets, say environmentalists. Ma said: "China is now the workshop of the world, and while Westerners enjoy cheap commodities ... we are dumping all the waste in our own backyard, our own rivers." Big polluter * Nearly half the world's population lives in river basins which have their source in China, including the Mekong and the Indus. * Beijing has been feuding with its neighbours for years over plans for dams. * It took days for China to notify Russia that an explosion at a petrochemical plant had sent 100 tonnes of benzene compounds pouring down a tributary to the Amur. * Chinese smog is carried over the Pacific to the west coast of the US. * Chinese acid rain falls in South Korea and Japan. * As China has banned logging, forests are being destroyed as far away as Africa to meet its appetite for wood.

China officials play down toxic river scare: paper

Beijing(Reuters)-Chinese authorities are playing down the severity of the latest in a series of river pollution scares and have failed to stop further contamination, the China Youth Daily said on Tuesday.

A project to clean up a stretch of the Xiangjiang River in southern Hunan province ended up polluting it last week when cadmium seeped out from silt dredged off the river bottom, domestic media reported.

The poisoning of the waterway, a tributary of China's longest river, the Yangtze, threatened water supplies in the cities of Zhuzhou, Xiangtan and the provincial capital Changsha.

Jiang Yimin, head of the Hunan province environmental protection agency, said on Monday that cadmium levels in the Xiangjiang River were still "one or two times" above national standard, but did not represent an immediate public health hazard, according to the China Daily.

"Drinking water for households is safe due to timely emergency measures," Jiang was quoted as saying.

But the provincial environmental administration said just on Sunday that cadmium levels in the river were still 22 to 40 times above standard, the China Youth Daily reported.

"Though the government has made some progress in cleaning up the Xiangjiang river after the accident, this newspaper has learned from local officials that the contamination continues and water pollution is still past the safe standard," it said.

Cadmium, a metallic element widely used in batteries, can cause liver and kidney damage and lead to bone diseases. Compounds containing cadmium are also carcinogenic.

Weeks before, a separate cadmium spill in the Beijiang River forced authorities to turn off tap water to tens of thousands of people in southern Guangdong province.

In November, an explosion at a chemical plant in northeast China poisoned drinking water for millions and sent a poisonous slick heading toward Russia.

An estimated 70 percent of China's rivers are contaminated by pollution, raising serious questions about the cost of the country's economic boom.

Hunan officials, including Jiang, met on Friday to discuss whether to shut water supplies to the three cities, and decided not to because "water quality was stable" and for fear of sparking public panic, the newspaper said.

The cadmium was believed to have come from the more than 200 chemical factories upstream of Zhuzhou that were pillars of the local economy, it said.

Toxic waste water from the factories, nearly all untreated, was still flowing into the river as of Sunday, the report said.

The Xiangtan government knew the Xiangjiang was contaminated with cadmium as early as June or July of 2004, Wang Guoxiang, a local legislator, told the newspaper.

"Some local authorities only pay attention to the environment when problems arise, and sometimes then they still respond carelessly," Wang said.

The China Daily said that the government had ordered chemical factories along the river to stop production.

But a factory worker told the China Youth Daily that at least one chemical plant had not shut. A worker involved in the clean-up project that released the cadmium into the Xiangjiang said the crisis was just a drop in the bucket in the heavy pollution of the area.

"It's not just the water that's polluted, look at all the smoke in the air. Even wearing a mask is no use," he said.

"The pollution is everywhere."

Monday, January 09, 2006

China's Hunan Battles Toxic Spill in Yangtze Branch

Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Local authorities in China's Hunan province are cleaning up a toxic spill from the nation's biggest zinc smelter that polluted a tributary of the Yangtze River, at least the third such incident in the past three months.

Cadmium, an industrial chemical that can cause neurological disorders and cancer, flooded into the Xiangjiang river during a silt-cleaning project started without official approval, the provincial environmental protection bureau said on its Web site yesterday. A spokesman for Zhuzhou Smelter said it isn't responsible for the accident and the plant is operating normally.

The cadmium level in the polluted stretch of river peaked at 25.6 times the safe standard on Jan. 5 before falling to 0.14 times on Saturday after the local government used neutralizing chemicals and turned up the flow of water from upstream reservoirs to dilute the toxins, according to the statement.

``The government has controlled the pollution and there has been no public panic,'' Jiang Yimin, head of the bureau, said in the statement. Drinking water supplies from plants in Xiangtan city near the site of the spill all met safety standards as of Jan. 7, the bureau said.

Seven out of 10 Chinese rivers are contaminated by toxins, according to the official Xinhua news agency. A nitrobenzene spill in the northeastern province of Jilin in November caused authorities to turn off the tap water of more than three million people, threatened supplies in neighboring Russia and prompted the resignation of China's environmental chief.

Silt Project

The cadmium spill in Hunan province polluted a 100-kilometer stretch of the Xiangjiang river, which flows past the provincial capital Changsha into Dongting Lake before entering the Yangtze, China's longest river, the state-run China Daily reported today.

Zhuzhou Water Conservancy Investment Co. on Dec. 23 started the silt-cleaning project without official permission and didn't take proper precautions, the bureau said in its statement.

The spill happened on Jan. 4 after the company built a dam at the mouth of a waste drainage pipe from the Zhuzhou Smelter, according to the bureau. The dammed water flowed into two lakes containing high levels of cadmium from nearby plants before overflowing into the river.

``Zhuzhou Smelter should not be responsible for the toxic spill incident,'' said Yu Feng, a spokesman with Hunan Zhuye Torch Metals Co., the Shanghai-listed owner of Zhuzhou Smelter. Yu said the plant is unlikely to be shut because of the spill.

Zhuye Torch shares rose 3.6 percent to 2.85 yuan at 2:13 p.m. Shanghai time.

Toxic Spills

The government will hold a province-wide inspection to stem any potential pollution accidents, the Hunan environmental protection bureau said.

The incident is the second in less than a month involving a zinc smelter. Shenzhen Zhongjin Lingnan Nonfemet Co., the country's third-biggest zinc producer, was ordered to halt output at its Shaoguan Smelter in Guangdong province on Dec. 21 after discharging excessive cadmium into a local river.

The spill prompted Yingde city, which has 100,000 residents on the Beijiang river, to close part of its water supply system for several hours on Dec. 20, the China Daily reported.

Cadmium is extracted during the production of zinc, used to strengthen steel for car bodies, and lead. Cadmium and lead are used in batteries.

China's economic growth, the fastest of any major economy, and an expanding urban population have caused an increase in pollution, aggravating social tensions and bringing the government's environmental management under scrutiny.

Jilin Blast

State Environmental Protection Administration head Xie Zhenhua resigned on Dec. 2 after being criticized by the State Council, the nation's highest ruling body, over the toxic spill in the northeast Songhua River. The spill followed an explosion at a unit of PetroChina Co., the nation's biggest oil company.

The environmental protection bureau ``hasn't paid due importance to the incident, underestimated the bad influence of the incident and should be responsible for the damage,'' state broadcaster China Central Television cited the State Council as saying.

At the same time, the environmental protection bureau criticized local officials for covering up the accident and for ``blind pursuit'' of economic development that has seriously damaged China's environment in the past 25 years.

In a further pollution incident, six tons of diesel leaked from an electricity factory into a branch of the Yellow River in the central province of Henan, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Jan. 6. Cities along the Yellow River have been alerted to be cautious of the water quality, the report said.

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China Investing $3B to Clean Up River

By CASSIE BIGGS Associated Press Writer © 2006 The Associated Press

BEIJING — China will invest more than $3 billion over the next five years to clean up the Songhua River, a key source of drinking water for tens of millions of people that was polluted in November by a toxic spill that flowed into Russia, reports said Sunday.

The pollution control effort will cover the entire river valley spanning four provinces that are home to more than 62 million people, the Beijing Youth Daily reported. It will cost the equivalent of $3.28 billion.

By 2010, more than 90 percent of the people living in the four provinces should have access to clean drinking water, the paper quoted environmental officials meeting in Harbin, capital of northern Heilongjian province, as saying. The percentage of those with access to clean drinking water now was not reported.

The announcement came after a Nov. 13 explosion at a chemical plant spewed benzene into the Songhua, polluting the river and disrupting running water to millions of people in China and Russia, where the toxic slick arrived late last month.

It also came as an eastern Chinese province shut down its water intake points along the Yellow River after a diesel oil spill, and another province reported that cadmium, a potentially cancer-causing chemical, had leaked into a tributary of the Yangtze River.

Under the cleanup plan, new facilities will be constructed to remove 4.78 million tons of wastewater from the Songhua each day, reports said. Officials said about 1.43 billion tons of wastewater must be removed from the river every year to improve its quality.

State media have been carrying frequent reports of water pollution since the benzene spill in the Songhua _ and accusations the local government tried to conceal it from the public for 10 days.

An oil pipe at a power plant in Gongyi City in central China's Henan province split Thursday due to freezing temperatures, spilling 6 tons of diesel into the Yiluo tributary of the Yellow River, local officials said.

In eastern Shandong province, authorities suspended water intakes at 63 points along the Yellow River Sunday as a 37-mile-stretch of pollutants reached the area, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

In Hunan province, also in central China, cadmium leaked into a tributary of the Yangtze River during a routine cleaning of wastewater drain pipes, said an official at the province's environmental protection bureau who would not give her name because she was not authorized to talk to the media.

She said the incident happened Jan. 6, but the amount of cadmium was only slightly above the government's acceptable level, and there were no plans to suspend water supplies to the hundreds of thousands of people who rely on the river for drinking water.

On China's tropical island of Hainan, a delay in building a wastewater treatment plant meant that more than 1 million people were drinking water contaminated with industrial and household waste, Xinhua said Sunday, quoting local government sources.

Also, the government said Sunday that officials must notify it within four hours of serious disasters like chemical spills, bird flu outbreaks and mine accidents. The new emergency response plan also says officials must notify the public as quickly as possible but sets no time limit.

The plan was issued by the State Council, China's Cabinet.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Environmentalists Worry on China's Kangs

By JOE McDONALD Associated Press Writer © 2006 The Associated Press

HUACHUAN, China — Li Xiulan says that for all of her 73 winters in China's frigid northeast, her best weapon against the biting cold has been a pile of bricks.

Like millions of northern Chinese, Li wakes up every morning on a kang _ a traditional brick sleeping platform heated from below by burning straw or coal during the long, dark winter months.

"Without the kang, winter would be unbearable," she said, bundled in layers of sweaters and warming her hands before the gentle heat of the kang in her grandchildren's bedroom.

Environmentalists worry that kangs waste energy and add to choking air pollution. But people here say it's the only way to survive in China's version of Siberia, where the winter sun sets at 3 p.m. and temperatures can plunge to 40 below zero.

For centuries, the kang _ pronounced "kahng" _ has been the center of winter life in the northeast. Families crowd together on them to sleep under mountains of quilts. Children play on them during the day. Parents do as many chores as they can on them.

"All day, if there's nothing else to do, we're on the kang," said Zhou Yuyong, a 27-year-old soybean farmer on the outskirts of Huachuan, a town near the border with Russia.

In Beijing and other northern cities, traditional homes with kangs have fallen to the wrecking ball, making way for apartment blocks with steam radiators. Cities have banned the burning of the coal bricks that fueled kangs and contributed to eye-searing smog.

But in the countryside, kangs have survived the arrival of electricity, mobile phones and the Internet. Families gather on them to watch satellite television and DVDs.

An estimated 80 percent to 90 percent of farm families in China's northeast use kangs, said Wang Hongyang, a professor at the Resource and Environment Institute of the Northeastern Agricultural University in Harbin, capital of China's northernmost province, Heilongjiang.

Scientists warn that kangs waste fuel, pollute the atmosphere and endanger the health of farm families by releasing carbon monoxide and other dangerous gases indoors.

Towns throughout the northeast are wreathed in smoke as families fire up their kangs for the evening. More prosperous homes emit the fetid odor of burning coal.

"In order to protect the environment, the government should encourage and guide farmers to give up using kangs," Wang said. "But the kang cannot be phased out in a short time because the farmers in these areas depend on them."

The government and environmental groups have sponsored research to produce alternatives using such things as natural gas from decomposing farm waste.

But for many families, the kang is close to perfect.

The furnace doubles as a heat source for the kitchen stove and burns roots, corn stalks and other vegetation that come free as a byproduct of their crops. The bricks soak up heat and hold it for hours, releasing it through the night.

Some tourist hotels in Beijing and elsewhere have tried to lure tourists looking for a taste of old China by installing kangs heated by electricity.

Preparing for winter dominates life in China's northeast, the region once known as Manchuria.

Hundreds of cabbages, a hardy vegetable that keeps for months, are stacked like firewood in the yards of homes.

The south-facing walls of some are almost entirely glass, double- and tripled-layered for a greenhouse effect from the few hours of daily sunlight in the dead of winter.

"If the windows were smaller, there would be no sunshine and it would be freezing in here," Zhou, the soybean farmer, said as she stood in her father-in-law's parlor.

In the yard outside, a flock of ducks waddled around, trying to stay warm in minus 5-degree weather _ and that was at 2 p.m. Icicles dangled from a mop hung out to dry.

"When it gets cold, everyone has to have a kang," said Zhou's father-in-law, Dou Zhiquan, 56. "Without one, you can't survive the winter."

China adds pollution to list of exports

By Emma Graham-Harrison

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's environmental woes spilled visibly over its borders as a toxic slick flowed into Russia in December, but exports of pollution are becoming as common as sales of cheap T-shirts for the economic powerhouse.

The country's leaders are only starting to grapple with the political fall-out at home after years of pursuing economic expansion at almost any price.

Dirty or scarce water, choking air and toxic factory effluent are some of the common problems fouling China's environment and its neighbours'.

Yet the international impact of China's problems have barely registered as cause for concern for Beijing's leadership. It took days for China to notify Russia that an explosion at a petrochemical plant sent 100 tons of benzene compounds pouring down a tributary to the Amur.

Smog carried over the Pacific to the west coast of the United States, acid rain in South Korea and Japan, and destruction of forests as far away as Africa. These are among other unwelcome exports that experts say might cloud China's hopes of being seen as a responsible global power.

"At the moment, China's top leaders have not realized how important, in terms of international relations, environmental conflicts can be," said Ma Zhong, vice-dean of the School of Environment and Natural Resources, at Renmin University.

"They are more concerned about economic and social relationships."

For China's neighbours, the three are inextricably linked.

Nearly half the world's population lives in river basins which have their source in China, according to Leo Horn, an adviser to Britain's Department for International Development.

Among them are some of Asia's great rivers, such as the Mekong and the Indus. Although these have so far escaped the worst of the pollution plaguing domestic waterways like the Yangtze, Beijing has already been feuding with its neighbours for years over plans for dams. Worse might follow.

"These are not the most polluted in the country ... but the sheer scale of our economic expansion means that in remote areas, activities will increase and problems will get worse," said Ma Jun, author of the book "China's Water Crisis."

China's reluctance to sacrifice growth for a cleaner environment causes problems even further away -- some of the industrial smog that shrouds its cities drifts over to dirty air along the west coasts of the Americas, scientists say.

But old attitudes that resources are for fuelling growth, and environmentalism is a bourgeoisie indulgence, are changing.

Top leaders recently pledged to tackle the country's "grim" environmental situation, put energy efficiency in their economic blueprint for the next five years and weigh the financial cost of pollution.

But for some countries, their problems began when China moved to address devastation at home.

EXPORTING DESTRUCTION

Beijing brought in a ban on most logging in the late 1990s, after deforestation was identified as a key factor behind large-scale floods that affected around one-fifth of the population and cost billions of dollars.

It closed off its own forests at a time of growing appetites for wooden products among the newly affluent and an expansion of furniture exports.

The combination sent Chinese firms over the border into Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) while buyers headed as far afield as Liberia and Indonesia.

"China has increased domestic use, increased exports and has few trees it can legally cut -- you can do the maths yourself," said Susanne Kempel, campaigner with British NGO Global Witness.

"It is essentially exporting its problems of deforestation to countries that often have less control or are politically unstable."

Around a million cubic meters of wood crossed the border illegally last year from areas of northern Myanmar identified as one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, she says.

Even when China is not directly harvesting other nations' resources, its companies, scouring the globe for energy and minerals, can wreak havoc with badly managed mines or drilling.

"There is a lack of systematic consideration of environmental issues in China's trade and investment decisions," said Beijing-based Horn.

But China should not take all the blame for pollution caused by a high level of manufacturing within its borders since many products are destined for Western markets, say environmentalists who hope consumer pressure could force firms to clean up.

"China is now the workshop of the world, and while Westerners enjoy cheap commodities ... we are dumping all the waste in our own backyard, our own rivers," said Ma.

"Consumers have a responsibility in this," he adds.