Cache of pollutants discovered in Tengger Desert

About 130,000 metric tons of pollutants have been dug out from a hidden dumping site on the edge of the Tengger Desert, the country's fourth-largest, a government spokesman said on Friday.

As of 6pm Monday, about 93 percent of the pollutants had been removed and sealed in waterproof bags. Of all the 14 polluted plots, inspectors and workers have finished the cleaning of 11 plots and are busy working on the rest, according to Liu Youbin, spokesman of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

"A monitoring and survey plan for underground water has been drafted, and workers are constructing wells needed for the installment of monitoring facilities to take water samples," he said at a news conference.

The pollutants were discovered by a group of environmental volunteers on Nov 7 in a forest when they were conducting a survey near Shapotou National Nature Reserve in Zhongwei city, Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

The pollutants were left by paper company Meili, which abandoned the site after it went bankrupt in 2015. The liquid waste covered an area of about 120,000 square meters, according to China Environment News.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment dispatched a team to investigate the case earlier this month.

While urging the local government of Zhongwei to accelerate work on identifying the pollutants, the ministry has also required relevant authorities to hold accountable those responsible for the incident and make public information in a timely manner.

Liu said the ministry will launch a campaign to comb through the Tengger Desert and crack down on environmental violations.

It's not the first time such pollution has occurred in Tengger, which is mainly located in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Gansu province, but also reaches parts of Ningxia.

In 2014, Ronghua Industry and Trade in Wuwei, Gansu province was found to have discharged over 83,000 tons of sewage into the desert, polluting an area of more than 18 hectares.