Local governments in Hunan Province in Dilemma after Lead Poisoning Revelation

Local governments in Hunan Province that had been unwilling to clamp down on polluters previously, will now likely pay the price after a string of lead poisoning cases.
Like many other parents of the lead-poisoned children, Lei Guo refuses to be appeased although doctors tell him his two children are getting better.

"Why are they feeling no less pain if their blood lead levels have dropped?" he says.

The 30-year-old migrant worker hurried home from Guangzhou March 16, when he heard the news of lead poisoning in his hometown, a village in Guiyang County of Chenzhou city, central China's Hunan Province.

Blood tests showed the amount of lead in his two-year-old son's blood and four-year-old daughter's stood at 474 micrograms per liter and 418 micrograms per liter, respectively, much higher than the normal level of below 100.

Results of tests at two medical institutions in Chenzhou City over the past week showed that 191 of 423 children from Guiyang County had excessive blood lead levels, among which forty-six had lead levels high enough to be classified as lead poisoning, said Chenzhou Health Bureau in a statement.

Excessive amount of lead in the blood can cause damage to the digestive, nervous, and reproductive systems and cause stomachaches, anemia and convulsions.

SOURCES OF POLLUTION

Three lead smelters held accountable for discharging contamination, which caused the poisoning, have been closed, says Zhang Jiyao, deputy director of Chenzhou Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.

Zhang says none of the three companies have gone through environmental assessment, and the bureau is still assessing the ground water, soil and the smelters' waste discharge to collect more proof.

Lei says the Yuanshan Lead Recycling Company, one of the three closed smelters, is the one that sickened his children.

The company, which produced two tonnes of lead every day was less than 300 meters from the village. Villagers say the black smoke of the company killed crops and gave them sore throats.

The lead poisoning cases in Guiyang emerged about 10 months after 254 children were found with excessive levels of lead in their blood in the neighboring Jiahe County of Chenzhou in July last year.

ACTIONS BY LOCAL GOVERNMENTS CALLED FOR

According to the Chenzhou Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, Jiahe County's two polluting lead production facilities were ordered to close ten times between 2007 and 2009, but the factories were closed and reopened time and again until they were completely shut down in September 2009.

Statistics from the Jiahe County's Environmental Protection Bureau show that last year, 309 factories were operating without having gone through environmental assessment.

Li Tucheng, an owner of a small smelting workshop in Jiahe, says that his workshop was shut down on March 20 as Chenzhou overhauls the city's mining industry after the lead poisoning incident.

Li's workshop was a 200-square-meter wooden shed and a four-meter-tall furnace. He says their smelting techniques were those used 200 years ago. The workshop discharged pollutants without any treatment.

Cao Guoxuan, a researcher with Chenzhou Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, estimated in a report in 2009 that more than half of Chenzhou's 500 smelting companies were small workshops.

Jiahe County government said in a statement in 2007 that they would "resolutely close down small smelting workshops" and required workshop owners to "dismantle equipments and close down them by themselves." But Li says he had not received any orders to close until March.

Jiahe County government has received villagers' reports that some illegal companies were not shut down because officials had stakes in them.

But Chen Rongwei, party chief of Jiahe County, says despite investigations, no such cases have been found.

Xiao Haibo, an official with Chenzhou Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, says the bureau has to work with local governments to shut down illegal factories, but no law empowers them to use mandatory means.

"If the government had shut down the three lead smelters or cut their power supply at the beginning, no one would have been poisoned," says Xiao.

"We can't do this ourselves. We have to rely on the local government," says Xiao.

Chang Jiwen, a researcher with the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says many local governments are not reliable.

"They care more about the gross domestic product (GDP) than the environment," says Chang.

The non-ferrous metal industry is a major contributor to GDP growth in Chenzhou, a city with a mineral bonanza valued at 265.6 billion yuan (39.06 billion U.S. dollars). The city ranks first in China in tungsten, bismuth, molybdenum and amorphous graphite reserves and has the third largest lead and zinc reserves.

China's environmental watchdogs don't have the power to shut down polluters. All they can do is give companies and local governments warnings, which are often ignored, says Chang.

"China's environmental protection laws distribute enforcement powers to different departments, among which the environmental protection bureaus are the weakest link," he says.

Chenzhou city has leveled the three companies responsible for the lead poisoning and is overhauling the city's mining industry, ready to shut down more polluters, say Zhang.

Jiahe County alone had sent 109 vehicles and bulldozers to shut down 59 polluters and suspended the operations of 54 others as of March 21.

MORE COSTS

"The cost of ignoring environmental protection is too much," says Zhang.

The costs Chenzhou has paid are more than economic and environmental ones. Hundreds of people may loose their jobs as the city closes down more factories.

Li Junfeng, 60, one of the 30 workers of the Yuanshan Lead Recycling Company suddenly found herself out of job.

"A group of people came suddenly and tore the factory apart," she says.

Li worked eight hours a day in the factory to earn 40 yuan. But with the factory gone, she will have to leave her family to find another job outside the town.

"It is a pity the factory was closed. The boss is a good man," she says.