Acidic waste leaking from Zijin Mining Group Co’s biggest copper plant may have spread to a another province from Fujian Province, threatening more fisheries in the Ting River.
Poisonous waste water from the copper mine in Fujian province has contaminated the Ting — a major waterway in southeast China — and has now flowed downstream into Guangdong Province, the China Daily said.
The pollution “will pose a big challenge to local fish farming,” a notice from Guangdong environmental authorities said, according to the China Daily.
PHOTO: AFP
“The Ting river runs into Guangdong, and it isn’t a surprise that the toxic spill would spread there,” said Heng Kun, an analyst at Essence Securities Co. “The concern is how much the government fine will be and when the contamination scandal for Zijin will come to an end.”
The report came as Zijin, China’s third-largest copper producer, issued a statement apologizing for the initial July 3 mishap — which killed off nearly 1,900 tonnes of fish — and its “improper handling” of information about the spill.
“The lessons from this incident are painful and the costs are substantial,” Zijin said in the statement.
During its rapid expansion, Zijin “was overconfident, had a lack of crisis awareness and did not properly handle the balance between economic efficiency, ecological benefit and public interest,” the statement said.
Investigators have determined that the initial leak of 9,100m³ of waste water from a sludge pond had flowed through an “illegally built passage” into the Ting.
The company at first blamed heavy rains for the toxic spill, but later released preliminary findings of a government probe that found it had ignored warnings that the flow of wastewater discharge at the mine was too high.
The Fujian environmental agency is posting daily reports to Guangdong Province regarding the water quality after the province informed the agency of elevated copper content in the river, an official at the agency who only wanted to be identified as Zheng said by telephone yesterday.
The Fujian government has three teams, which will investigate the Zijin incident, monitor the water quality 24 hours a day and be ready to handle emergencies, Zheng said. The government will also investigate pollution of all companies in the province, he said.
Zijin will contact the environmental agencies in the Fujian and Guangdong regarding the widening spill, company spokesman Zhao Jugang said by phone yesterday.
Zijin’s board of directors expresses “its deep regret regarding the incident and the improper handling of information disclosure by the company, for causing substantial losses to the fish farmers located at the reservoir downstream of the mine and having a harmful impact on society,” the company said yesterday.
Zijin, China’s sixth-largest copper producer, has shut its smelter during the investigation and doesn’t know when it will reopen.
As many as 38 Chinese officials will be penalized for dereliction of duty, the 21st Century Business Herald reported yesterday, citing an unidentified person.
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