The spill
stretches for miles.
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China's
Benzene Spill Covered Up For
Ten Days
By
Pacific
Environment
Cover Up Delays
Response and Jeopardizes Public Health In China and Russia
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BEIJING, China – San Francisco based
Pacific
Environment has recently asked the Chinese government to take action
against
the local government corruption and secrecy that led to the water
pollution
crisis engulfing China’s Songhua River. The month-old benzene spill
continues
to threaten the health of millions of Chinese citizens, as well as
Russian
citizens downstream from the spill. Ironically, Jilin Petrochina was
one of 21
companies that won the "National Environmental Friendly Enterprise"
award from the government just last month.
Local
officials in China’s Jilin Province tried to cover up the
catastrophic
release of water pollution – which came from the Benzene Production
Plant of
the Jilin PetroChina Company – for ten days following the accident.
Officials
only informed the public after they were unable to contain the
pollution within
provincial boundaries and thus forced to inform officials in a
neighboring
province. This cover-up delayed the government’s response, jeopardizing
public
health in the Chinese city of Harbin, and the Russian cities
of Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Numerous smaller
villages and
towns along the Songhua and Amur Rivers have also been impacted,
or will be
when the spill arrives. Many of these towns lack the equipment, access
to information
and other resources to deal with the disaster.
“This
tragedy was made much
worse by government officials who tried to cover up the pollution from
the
explosion,” said David Gordon, Executive Director of Pacific
Environment. “The
Chinese government must now take full responsibility for adequate clean
up and
disclose additional threats to human health along the Songhua River.”
With a
Chinese staff based
in Beijing Pacific Environment has supported environmental efforts in China’s northeastern Heilongjiang Province for several years,
including a
training program for local organizations on water pollution monitoring.
Pacific
Environment has worked in China for more than a decade
to support
local citizens’ groups that want to have a greater voice in
environmental
issues. The Chinese staff works with a number of grassroots
environmental and
citizen groups throughout China.
Factories
Have Been Polluting For Years
Anonymous,
local
sources close to Pacific Environment claim that local government
agencies have
covered up chronic pollution for years. These sources believe that
polluters in
the region provide payments to local government officials to continue
polluting, rather than implementing environmental measures.
For
example, local
environmental activists had found that Harbin Pharmaceutical Group has
been
dumping its toxic wastes into the Songhua River for years, but claim
that local
journalists were pressured by the government to not report on the story
due to
the company’s regional economic importance.
According
to another local
source, the Songhua River experienced a
significant mercury
pollution incident in the mid-1980s, but this was not reported to the
public,
even though the impact of the pollution was felt over a decade later.
“This crisis
is just a
dramatic climax of years of pollution that have occurred and continue
to occur
in the river,” said Wen Bo. “The Songhua River has been soaked with
various
pollutants including mercury and heavy metals for decades.”
Long-Term Impacts
“The pollution caused by
this chemical plant explosion in Jilin Province won’t just wash away in
a week,”
said Pacific Environment’s Beijing-based representative Wen Bo. “The
pollution
could last for 15 to 20 years. The nitrobenzene is heavier than water
and will
not dissolve quickly. The chemicals could remain on the riverbed for
decades.”
Local
sources say that
water quality testing has focused on sampling the surface water of the Songhua River, but the riverbed itself
is badly
contaminated. They worry that organisms which grow and feed on the
riverbed
suffer long-term impacts.
The economic
and health
impacts of the pollution are likely to be enormous, since more than 10
million
people are dependent on the region’s water supply. “Pollution-related
health
problems are likely to soar in coming years,” Wen Bo added. “The
fishery
resources of the Songhua are likely to be
devastated due to the accident.”
Environmentalists Call For Action
Pacific Environment
pointed out that this catastrophe demonstrates the importance of new
approaches
to environmental governance and transparency in China’s provinces. “This
disaster reveals
that local environmental agencies are ill prepared for a crisis at this
scale,
even though we are seeing such pollution more and more often in China,” said David Gordon.
“Environmental
officials in China need to be empowered to
fully
enforce the law and respond quickly in times of crisis to protect
public
health.”
Local
people in Harbin hope that this emergency
will force
the government to finally take water pollution in the Songhua River seriously by shutting
down
polluting factories and enforcing strict pollution norms. They hope
that
government officials will learn the importance of transparency about
pollution
issues.
Pacific
Environment, which
has also worked extensively in the Russian Far East, is confident that
the
Russian public and government will welcome Chinese efforts to become
more
transparent and to clean up the Songhua River, a tributary to Russia’s Amur River. “Scientists in Russia’s city of Khabarovsk have worried about
pollution in the Songhua River for years,” said David
Gordon.
“Although they have repeatedly tried to develop joint initiatives with
their
Chinese counterparts to monitor and clean up pollution, these attempts
have
never resulted in real progress. Scientists have been unable even to
receive a
list of all the polluting factories along the Songhua River.”
As a first
step, Pacific
Environment is calling on Chinese officials to make public an accurate
list of
all polluting factories along the Songhua River, accurate data about the
toxic releases
from these factories, and to meet with citizen’s groups to establish a
transparent process for ensuring cleanup and pollution enforcement.
Among
other projects, Pacific Environment confronts
tax-payer funded banks that back oil, gas, mining and timber extraction
and the
companies that profit from environmentally-devastating projects. Check
them out
at pacificenvironment.org .
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