Tue, May 30, 2017 page5

• China’s war on pollution means little to people living near industrial park

  • Reuters, HANDAN, China
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  China’s Hebei Province, home to many of the country’s most polluted cities, has promised to close down companies that are poisoning the environment, but after years of protests, villagers living in the shadows of the Guantao Chemical Industry Park remain skeptical.

  Though festooned with banners calling for the construction of “beautiful villages” and the “upgrade” of Hebei’s highly polluting heavy industries, the sprawling complex of chemical plants shadowing the villages of Nansitou and East Luzhuang often operates unchallenged by environmental regulators, residents said.

  Local authorities turn a blind eye to factories that pollute air, water and land, they said.

  

  A man and a boy ride on an electric tricylce past the Guantao Chemical Industry Park outside the village of East Luzhuang in China’s Hebei Province on Feb. 23.

  Photo: Reuters

  In particular, they said that the plants do a lot of their dirtiest work at night, when inspectors are rarely seen.

  “They just don’t come,” said a resident who would only identify himself by his surname Zhang.

  Near his home was a patch of burnt undergrowth, the result of a vehicle carrying hazardous chemicals catching fire earlier this year, sending plumes of pungent smoke through the streets.

  “I gave them a call, but none of them came,” he said. “We can’t stand the smell and there’s suddenly smoke everywhere.”

  Provincial and municipal environmental authorities did not respond to requests for comment, but an inspector, surnamed Liu, who is responsible for monitoring the park, said by telephone that the facilities were under 24-hour surveillance.

  In a bid to tackle the environmental impact of four decades of untrammeled growth, China is in the fourth year of a “war on pollution,” and has promised to take action against persistent offenders and the local governments that protect them.

  Hebei’s proximity to Beijing — it virtually surrounds the capital and produces about a third of the particulate matter that often chokes the city — has put it on the front line.

  The villages are on the outskirts of the steel city of Handan, which official figures show had the most polluted air in the first four months of this year.

  In an archive of nearly 11,000 complaints submitted to the Hebei government in the past nine years and made available online, about 700 cases from across the province involved incidents of nocturnal pollution, with many complainants saying that local environmental bureaus did not have the clout to tackle the problem.

  Pollution at night remained a problem and officials were working to rectify it, Handan’s Chinese Communist Party Secretary Gao Hongzhi (高宏志) said on the sidelines of China’s annual National People’s Congress in March.

  “Some enterprises are reckless and they use the cover of night to emit pollutants,” he said, adding that the city was tracking late-night power consumption to catch culprits in the act.

  “In 2014, we discovered more than 100 enterprises had this kind of problem, but last year it was down to about 40. This issue is very important and we are paying attention to it,” Gao added.

  Residents said there had been a spike in cancer cases in the villages, especially in the past four years, though they could not provide proof in the form of data.

  Government departments, disease control centers and hospitals in Hebei, Handan and in the local county governments did not respond to requests to provide figures for local cancer rates or causes of death.

  Since 2008, swathes of farmland have been steadily taken over by the park, now consisting of about a dozen plants manufacturing pesticides and other toxic products such as benzene.

  Some residents said they had already given up planting cotton and sweet potatoes, which no longer grow because of the pollution, and replaced them with hardier crops.

  During a dawn visit to the area by journalists, plants at the park appeared to be more active than they were on visits during the day. Plumes of smoke issued from buildings that were inactive earlier and a chemical stink hung in the air.

  An official complaint about pollution at the chemical park was submitted to the provincial government as early as April 2014.

  “I have no idea whether this will be of any use, but I need to try on behalf of ordinary people,” wrote the complainant, who was not identified.

  Despite promises from the Hebei Environmental Protection Bureau to put the park under greater scrutiny, violations have continued, local residents said.

  In March last year, for example, Hebei Rongte Chemical Corp pledged to local residents to improve “internal management” after a cracked benzene heating gasket leaked toxic steam into the air, according to documents supplied by residents and reviewed by reporters.

  A source with direct knowledge of operations at another plant said untreated wastewater was regularly dumped directly into the ground.

  “There’s so much polluted water they couldn’t handle it,” the source said when asked why the firm did not use an on-site treatment facility.

  The source did not want to be identified, fearing repercussions.

  Late in 2014, frustrated villagers blockaded the chemical park and the local highway.

  Reporters were unable to reach officials to confirm claims the chemical plants offered financial compensation of 3 yuan (US$0.43) per day to end the stand-off and then did not pay it.

  “But it doesn’t matter if we get it or not, the main thing is to shut these plants down,” said Ding, a 46-year old Nansitou resident.
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