GreenWatch

China is an extreme example of water pollution. No water, no life B. McPherson Villagers in the central province of Shaanxi discovered that local officials secretly installed pipes to siphon off their clean well water, forcing them to purchase water of a lesser quality. A protester explained to RFA: He said the standoff was sparked when villagers discovered in early August that officials had secretly installed a pipeline to extract water from a well they rely on for drinking water, and villagers had cut it in protest. Radio Free Asia The protest and rally outside the local government offices was tame by Western standards. People converged on the space outside the offices holding banners, one of which read “Dismiss the Worthless Party Secretary”. However in the PRC even such mild objections to injustices can land a protester a lengthy jail sentence. Unconfirmed reports are that some of the villagers have been handed seven year sentences. Water is quickly becoming...

B. McPherson  No water no life China’s great leap forward that started in the 1990s has exacted a heavy price on the environment and small farmers. Slack environmental protection laws have allowed the factory owners to dump toxic waste directly into waterways, polluting them in some cases to the point where it is dangerous to touch the water. In addition to widespread pollution of waterways and ground water, industry sucks up vast amounts of water in the manufacturing process. Much of China runs on coal power, a resource in abundance particularly in the north part of the country which also is amongst the driest of the territory. Coal uses about 17% of China’s available water, but much comes from already dry areas. Some of these areas are as dry as the Middle East. Water used for industry becomes unavailable for growing food. While the central government is aware of the looming crisis, many urban dwellers are going about their daily business in blissful ignorance of t...

B. McPherson China’s much publicized pig float in their showcase city of Shanghai is just the latest insult to their waterways. Floating, rotting carcasses can be fished out of the river water and barring new swine dumping, if that were all that polluted the river, it could be made safe again. The toxic soup of sewage, garbage and industrial waste fouls many of the great rivers of China and nothing seems effective in stopping it. The fouling of China’s waterways will not be dealt with as long as those responsible for ensuring safe water ignore the problem and lie to the public. The authorities in Shanghai have declared the water with the putrid pigs, garbage, sewage and toxic chemicals safe to drink. The public doesn’t believe them, but is still forced to use the water for washing and cleaning. A river that flows through the industrial area of Shenzen is so polluted that the locals refer to it as the Black Dragon River. It supplies the drinking water for Hong Kong. ...

B. McPherson Note the broadcaster says no pollution of this river has occurred! Pigs don’t fly but they sure can float as the residents of China’s Shanghai have found. To date over 3 000 have been fished from the Huangpu River which serves as the main water supply to the coastal city. The problem of the dead pigs has grown too large to cover up and even China Daily is reporting on it. Reports of dead animals started coming in last week, but the public was not made aware of the corpses in their water supply until Monday. Some of the dead animals still had ear tags which the department of agriculture traced to piggeries upriver. An outbreak of porcine circovirus in the upriver location has resulted in the death of about 20 000 animals. In Jiaxing's village of Zhulin, which is dependent on pig farming, almost all of the more than 1,400 households keep pigs. In January, 10,078 pigs died there and in February another 8,326 died, Jiaxing Daily reported. China Daily...

B. McPherson Air and water pollution threatens China's future. China has taken one small step towards cleaning up their heavily polluted country. They have acknowledged the existence of “Cancer Villages”. Until the recently they have denied that they exist. These villages are in close proximity to industrial operations which until now have had free rein to dump their toxic waste into surface and ground water. The resulting pollution has rendered about 20% of the rivers in China so polluted that they are no longer useful for industrial use. The water that people are forced to use for washing and drinking is also heavy with toxins. In the Cancer Villages as many as 80% of the people are suffering from various cancers. Greenpeace activists in China have been urging the People’s government to take action on the release of toxins into the environment since 1997. They hail the acknowledgement of the problem and a five year plan to eliminate some of the most toxic che...