(March 29, 2002) ‘Two major toxic spills in the “new” China, with its roaring economy, are now threatening the ecosystems of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, long considered the cradles of Chinese civilization.’

Shanghai: Two major toxic spills in the ‘new’ China, with its roaring economy, are now threatening the ecosystems of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, long considered the cradles of Chinese civilization.

“The imbalance between economic expansion and environmental protection is a normal phenomenon in developing economies such as China,” Ma Jun, the chief economist at Deutsche Bank AG’s Great China branch, told Interfax Tuesday. “The Chinese government is attempting to resolve these problems to ensure sustainable development, but the process takes time.”

A cadmium spill in central China’s Hunan Province has polluted a 100-kilometer stretch of the Xiangjiang river, which flows past the provincial capital Changsha into Dongting Lake and feeds into the Yangtze, China’s longest river, the state-run China Daily reported Monday.

In another development, a diesel oil spill on the Yellow River, the country’s second longest, reached the city of Jinan, capital of eastern China’s Shandong Province, on Monday. The oil leaked from the No. 2 Power Plant in Gongyi, a city in central China’s Henan Province, last Thursday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Since the country’s implementation of economic reforms in the late 1970s, more and more emphasis in China has been placed on strengthening the economy. The Chinese people and government have concentrated on income, output, and economics, often at the expense of environmental protection, Ma said. Past government policies have often set their sights on GDP growth at any cost.

“But in the past few years, the governments is now restructuring policy to correct these mistakes,” Ma said. “Authorities have adjusted tax duties to encourage ‘green industry’ and to restrain overheated industries seriously impact the natural environment.”

For example, China increased tax rates starting from January 1 of this year on utilization of nonferrous metals and iron ore to prevent excess depletion of mineral reserves and to protect the environment from over-mining. However, this process of correcting past mistakes will not be completed overnight.

The cadium spill on the Xiangjiang River was caused by a silt-cleaning project that began operations without official permission on December 23 of last year. The company that executed the project did not take proper precautions, which led to the spill last week. Levels of cadmium in a small section of the Xiangjiang River were still above safety levels as the slick continued its journey downstream towards the Yangtze River, Xinhua reported. The later stages of the Yangtze River pass through some of China’s most economically developed areas in Jiangsu Province.

The cadium spill occurred on January 4 after the company built a dam at the mouth of a waste drainage pipe from Zhuzhou Smelter, China’s largest zinc smelter. The dammed water flowed into two lakes containing high levels of cadmium from nearby plants before overflowing into the river, the local government said.

After the toxic spill entered the river, Zhuzhou Smelter did not suspend their production. An official at the administrate office of Zhuzhou Smelter, who asked to remain anonymous, told Interfax the smelter was innocent and should not be held responsible for the incident.

Meanwhile, in the eastern province of Shandong, a 60-km diesel oil slick flowing down the Yellow River forced provincial authorities to stop pumping water from the river. As part of emergency plans, 63 pumping stations along the river in several cities and counties, including the capital Jinan, have been shut down. The suspension could last a week, Xinhua reported, citing local officials.

These two spills are the latest in a series of incidents in which toxic materials have contaminated water supplies in China. In November of last year, a toxic benzene slick from an oil plant explosion in northeast China polluted the Songhua River and forced authorities to cut the water supply to millions of people in Heilongjiang Province. Furthermore, cadmium dumped into the Bei River by a zinc smelter in southern China’s Guangdong Province contaminated drinking for more than a million people.

Interfax, March 29, 2002