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MaomingMaster
Board Legend
Joined: Feb 03, 2004
Posts: 11059
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 Posted:
Dec 22, 2005 - 12:48 PM |
 
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| Post subject: More river pollution alerts. |
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051222/hl_afp/chinaenvironmentpollution
South China metropolis on alert as toxic slick approaches
1 hour, 46 minutes ago
BEIJING (AFP) - The southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou was ordered to prepare to start emergency plans to ensure safe drinking water supplies as a toxic cadmium slick approached the city of 10 million residents.
The local Guangdong provincial government issued the order to Guangzhou and neighbouring Foshan city, the Xinhua news agency said.
The incident follows a chemical spill in a river in northeast China last month that left millions without water for four days, highlighting the seriousness of water pollution in China and raising questions about Beijing's ability to handle its rapid pace of development.
The latest toxic slick was caused by an excessive discharge of cadmium from a state-owned smelting works in the Beijiang river, a major source of drinking water for cities in the northern part of Guangdong, Xinhua said on Wednesday.
The Beijiang runs into the Pearl river which flows through Guangzhou.
Waste discharges increased the volume of cadmium in the Beijiang at Shaoguan city to nearly 10 times above safety levels, "seriously endangering" the safety of water downstream, Xinhua cited the local government saying.
It did not say when the discharge occurred, but provincial environmental officials were sent to the area Sunday, Xinhua said.
Local governments have set up monitoring posts along the Beijiang river to check water quality, it said.
Officials in Yingde, a city with a population of one million some 90 kilometers (55 miles) downstream from Shaoguan, told AFP Wednesday they had lowered a dam gate to block the slick from flowing to the part of the river supplying water to Yingde's urban areas.
They were now working around the clock to build a pipeline to divert clean water from a local reservoir, to provide potable water to the 100,000 residents there.
"We've worked the whole night last night and expect to complete it in 48 hours," said an official from Yingde's Water Resources Bureau.
Cadmium is a chemical used in protective plating. Serious exposure can cause diarrhoea, stomach pains, severe vomiting, bone fracture, reproductive failure and damage to the central nervous system and the immune system.
Guangdong provincial government has decided to release water from a reservoir in the upper reaches of the river to dilute the pollution so that the water will be safe enough to drink, Xinhua quoted experts saying.
Water carriers, including 15 fire engines, were also ferrying in drinking water, it said.
A Yingde city official told AFP the city was confident it would not need to cut off water.
"There are three rivers flowing to the city. Even if Beijiang's water is unsafe, we can use water from the other rivers," said the official.
Polluted water blocked by the dam gate will be treated and then diverted elsewhere including to irrigate farmland.
The spill has polluted the river water in Shakou, a town to the north of Yingde, but Shakou officials told AFP the town of 40,000 does not rely on river water.
"We are advising the people living on both banks of Beijiang to not allow their farm animals to drink the Beijiang water," a Shakou official said.
<So effectively the town does rely on the river water!>
Last month's spill in northeast China's Heilongjiang province was caused by an explosion at a benzene plant. That spill is headed to the Russian city of Khabarovsk along the Amur river and predicted to hit the city of 600,000 early Thursday.
Many factories in China are located on river banks as they need water in their production process and are notorious for discharging untreated industrial wastes into the rivers, causing most of China's river water to be undrinkable.
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Excellent!
When I was living in HK the local government protested to cities like Shenzhen and Guangdong about their dirty water polluting Hong Kong's water system and pretty much both cities replied 'not our **** problen pal!'.
What a dirty shithole this country really is....[/url] |
Last edited by MaomingMaster on Dec 22, 2005 - 12:54 PM; edited 1 time in total |
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MaomingMaster
Board Legend
Joined: Feb 03, 2004
Posts: 11059
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| Posted:
Dec 22, 2005 - 12:53 PM |
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Then this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051221/sc_nm/environment_china_zinc_dc
China zinc smelter halts output after pollution -TV
By Lucy Hornby Wed Dec 21, 8:35 AM ET
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's third largest zinc smelter has been ordered to stop production on suspicion of water pollution, state television said on Wednesday, citing sources in the plant's home province of Guangdong.
Toxic levels of cadmium in the North River in the affluent southern province had reached 10 times normal levels, Shanghai Television reported.
Cadmium is an element widely used in batteries that can cause liver and kidney damage, and which in compounds can be carcinogenic.
River pollution has become a sensitive topic in China. A toxic slick is moving toward the Russian city of Khabarovsk after an explosion at a northeastern Chinese petrochemical plant dumped poisonous benzene in the Songhua River.
"Due to the situation, the Shaoguan smelter has been ordered to halt production pending adjustments," Shanghai Television reported without elaborating.
"Currently, the polluted water is flowing downstream. The environmental bureau has initially confirmed that this situation arose because the Shaoguan smelter released abnormal amounts of polluted water containing cadmium during equipment maintenance," the station said.
Two officials with Shaoguan's listed parent, Shenzhen Zhongjin Lingnan Non-ferrous Metal Co. Ltd., told Reuters earlier there had been no impact on operations.
Company officials could not be reached Wednesday evening.
The smelter has a capacity of about 180,000 tonnes a year of zinc ingot.
China is the world's largest producer of zinc, producing 2.4 million tonnes in the first 11 months of 2005. Its exports dropped nearly 40 percent to just over 108,000 tonnes in the first 10 months of 2005 as domestic galvanised steel capacity expanded.
Benchmark zinc futures on the London Metal Exchange have risen 47 percent this year.
Guangdong Television reported late on Tuesday that local environmental officials had ordered the smelter to stop discharging water from Sunday.
"We are working with the environmental officials, but it's hard to say who is responsible. There are a lot of companies near that section of the river," a company official said earlier on Wednesday.
Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! Yeah I bet!
Trading in the company's Shenzhen-listed shares was suspended on Wednesday, pending a company announcement on Thursday. Zhongjin's Shenzhen-listed shares fell 3.4 percent on Tuesday, underperforming the market's 0.4 percent gain.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yet again China puts the cart before the horse.......
When I first came to Shanghai I read something about the development of the city and it said something about China developing now and 'sweeping the dirt under the rug' but will deal with it later.
WHEN?? |
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yu888
Board Deity
Joined: Jan 25, 2003
Posts: 17972
Location: ZhongShanParkArea SH
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| Posted:
Dec 22, 2005 - 11:47 PM |
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-spill22dec22,1,759 2157.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Toxic River Spill in China Again Shuts Off an Area's Water Supply
This time a smelter dumps chemicals in the country's south. In a Russian city bordering the northeast, last month's slick arrives.
From Associated Press
December 22, 2005
BEIJING — A city in southern China shut down its water system for eight hours after a smelter dumped chemicals into a river, residents said Wednesday, a month after a toxic spill in a northeastern river disrupted water supplies to millions.
The latest spill occurred on the Bei River in Guangdong, one of China's most densely populated provinces and a center for its export-driven manufacturing industries.
The water supply in Shaoguan, 175 miles north of Hong Kong, was shut off Tuesday from about 9 a.m. to about 5 p.m., employees of three downtown hotels said.
"Today everything is back to normal," said a woman who answered the phone at the city's Hotel de Royce. She would give only her surname, Li.
China has suffered a series of such disasters, often blamed on lack of safety equipment or officials' refusal to enforce environmental rules that might hurt businesses. The accidents are an embarrassment to the government of President Hu Jintao, which has promised to clean up environmental damage from China's 25 years of rapid economic growth.
Last month, a chemical plant explosion in China's northeast spewed 100 tons of benzene and other toxins into the Songhua River, a key water source for millions of people.
The city of Harbin shut down the supply of water to 3.8 million people for five days.
The Songhua flows into the Heilong River, which becomes the Amur in Russia.
In the Russian city of Khabarovsk, authorities cut off water to its 10,000 residents Wednesday to avoid the toxic slick.
By evening, pipes began to pump water once again to the homes of people in three southern districts of the city, with full supplies expected to resume by this morning.
Regional officials said that tests conducted in the Amur so far had not detected chemicals above permissible levels.
But a top environmental official warned the region's 580,000 residents not to drink tap water because of the possible contamination.
Tuesday's water shutdown in Shaoguan came after the government said a smelter had dumped toxic chemicals into the Bei, pushing levels of the heavy metal cadmium to 10 times the acceptable levels.
It was unclear how many people were affected in Shaoguan, which has about 520,000 people in its urban core. Officials who answered the phone at the Shaoguan city government and water company refused to give their names and denied any disruption in the water supply.
Downstream from Shaoguan, the city of Guangzhou — China's southern business center — was ordered to make emergency plans to protect its supply, the official New China News Agency reported Wednesday.
The Bei flows into the Pearl River, which passes Guangzhou and empties into the South China Sea west of Hong Kong. |
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