The Associated Press
July 11, 2006

Most of China’s chemical plants pose a ‘grave environmental risk’ because they are located too close to cities and rivers, the State Environmental Protection Administration warns.

Article excerpt Beijing: Most of China’s chemical plants pose a “grave environmental risk” because they are located too close to cities and rivers, a top regulator said Tuesday. The State Environmental Protection Administration warned of an increase in toxic accidents unless safety was tightened at facilities, the official Xinhua News Agency said. A government study prompted by a string of pollution disasters found that 81 percent of the 7,555 plants surveyed are near water sources or population centers, Xinhua said. “Unless effective risk prevention measures were taken, it would be impossible to check the trend of surging environmental incidents,” SEPA deputy director Pan Yue was quoted by Xinhua as saying. … The latest survey found that 1,354 chemical plants are adjacent to water sources, while 2,489 are in population centers, Xinhua said. It said 86 are around the Three Gorges Dam on central China’s Yangtze River. … In the biggest disaster yet, a spill of nitrobenzene and other chemicals into the Songhua river in November forced Harbin, the biggest city in the northeast, to suspend running water to 3.8 million people for five days. The spill flowed across the border into Russia, straining Beijing’s ties with Moscow, a key ally. The top Chinese environmental regulator was forced to resign over the spill. But the disaster gave his agency new prominence, and its officials now deliver blunt public warnings about pollution that once might have been suppressed in favor of economic interests.