News, Cover

Aug 22, 2011

Translated by Zhu Na

Original article: [Chinese] 

 Luliang Chemical Co., Ltd in Qujing City Yunnan Province has illegally dumped 280,000 tons of chromium slag over the last 17 years, polluting local soil and water. We cannot help but wonder: why our environmental institutions have done nothing? Why can’t environmental supervision be tougher?

The answer lies in the facts. What made them violate the laws and regulations regardless of the safety of people’s lives? Why didn’t environmental supervision and protection agencies take effective control and management in their usual law enforcement? The high cancer rate at Xinglong Village of Qujing City is suspected to be directly linked to the chromium pollution. Why didn’t local authorities discover this in time, to stop and punish the polluters? Were they not aware of it or was there something behind it? Reportedly, villagers had been appealing to higher authorities regarding the chromium slag, but their petition had always been stopped. Was this for social stability or was there any interest of collusion or power and money hidden behind it?

 Such questioning is not without reason. There is no shortage of laws and regulations on the transport and storage of chromium slag, nor is there a lack of management and supervision. There was also no lack of information, but no one reported it. According to media reports, it seems that environmental supervision institutions didn’t fulfill their role well. Although, they knew there were problems, they would rather make allowances to avoid trouble than digging out the truth because “compensation has been made, so no need to look further into it.” Evading duty and covering up the small problems have finally accumulated to big events harming the lives and safety of the public.

 Similar situations occurred in almost all environmental events. Unfortunately, no matter what the incident is - chromium pollution in Qujing, pollution by mines and chemical enterprises, or even the Dalian’s paraxylene, or PX, projects being relocated - every time these questions are asked, there has never been a clear and definite answer.

 If we take a closer look at the situation, it seems that in previous environmental incidents, environmental departments always seem to be the last one knowing or revealing the problems. Then, while dealing with these problems, they often take a passive position, sometimes defending local interests. Environmental remediation has continued for the past few years, however, a series of major environmental incidents that violate regulations keep occurring. One can see how vulnerable the environmental supervision system is.

 Each environmental pollution incident threatened the health and safety of the public, so China is no longer able to afford the price of pollution in the name of economic development, so environmental protection should be tougher. Environmental supervision systems should be as independent as possible. The efficiency of local environmental protection depends on local governments, but reforming the system takes time. So now, except for government supervision, it is necessary to foster the public’s environmental awareness, support environmental non-governmental organizations, use social supervision to assist government supervision and use public opinions to motivate government supervision. Then, improve the system, which should become the catalyst in ensuring environmental protection in a virtuous circle. Yunnan’s illegal chromium dump incident and Dalian’s PX project ought to illustrate the point.