Houston Chronicle
July 20, 2006

A 27-year-old economic boom has left China’s waterways and coastlines polluted by industrial and farm chemicals and domestic sewage. ‘Having long failed to enforce its own environmental safeguards,’ China must now outsource for help.

Jinshan: . . . As China beefs up pollution controls following a spate of chemical spills it’s turning to foreign businesses with the advanced technology it needs to help solve its increasingly complex problems with industrial waste. . . . Piecemeal efforts to tackle industrial pollution gained urgency after a spill from a chemical factory explosion in November in Jilin province tainted water supplies for millions living in northeastern China and in neighboring Russia. . . . China has budgeted some $162 billion for environmental protection in 2006-2010. At the same time, its more than 600 big cities are belatedly tackling long-neglected sewage treatment and searching for ways to restore depleted aquifers and purify tainted rivers and lakes. The country’s 27-year-old economic boom has left its waterways and coastlines severely polluted by industrial and farm chemicals and domestic sewage. Its countryside is littered with garbage and construction waste, and its cities suffocated by smog. Having long failed to enforce its own environmental safeguards, China lacks the expertise to clean up its own mess. Contracts for such work often go to foreign companies like Suez, which has a 50-year contract to provide water treatment and supplies for the Shanghai industrial zone.