Chinese City to Relocate Smelters After Cadmium Pollutes River
The southern Chinese city of Hechi will move all local smelters to an industrial park where their emissions can be better monitored after cadmium from a plant contaminated a river and threatened drinking water for millions downstream, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The facilities will be moved to two industrial parks dozens of miles away from Hechi’s city center in five years, Xinhua reported late yesterday, citing Liao Jincheng, director of the Hechi’s development and reform commission. Hechi is home to 145 heavy metals companies, according to the report. Companies that refuse to move will be shut, Xinhua reported.
The spill, first detected Jan. 15 upstream of Hechi, killed fish, prompted panic buying of bottled water and led to the dismissal of Hechi’s environmental protection chief and six other local officials. China’s Communist Party has sought to reduce pollution and stop lead poisoning from battery makers, fluoride leaks from solar panel plants and other contamination from provoking unrest that erodes its right to rule.
Cadmium, used in batteries and paint pigments, may cause kidney dysfunction and cancer, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The metal will have a lasting environmental impact on fish and soil when it sinks to the riverbed, China National Radio reported previously, citing Li Li, a researcher at the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences.
The concentration of cadmium near the water plant in Liuzhou, a city of 1.5 million people that had its water supply threatened by the spill, met national standards today, the municipal government said. Water further upstream still had cadmium levels that exceeded national standards, it said.
Source of Spill
Investigations of the spill in Hechi, located in Guangxi province, have tracked the contamination to a producer of dye products and a metallurgical chemical plant, Xinhua reported.
Smaller companies with annual production value of less than 20 million yuan ($3.2 million) will be the first to relocate to the industrial parks, according to Xinhua.
Plans for relocating the factories were also previously included in Hechi’s five-year that covers the period through 2015, Xinhua reported. Centralizing the facilities will make monitoring easier and help reduce the cost of treating pollution, Xinhua reported.
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Feifei Shen in Beijing at Fshen11@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Liu at jliu42@bloomberg.net
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