Society

Questions raised over waste leak

By Zhu Xingxin and Cheng Yingqi (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-22 07:22

SHANGHANG, Fujian - The Tingjiang River may have been polluted a month before waste leaked from a copper mine in Shanghang, Fujian province, as fish farmers were already struggling, local residents said.

Residents of the Huangxi village of Shanghang on Wednesday distributed two test reports, which show excessive copper content had contaminated water in the Tingjiang River in June.

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The Zijin Mining Group Co, one of China's major producers of copper and gold, admitted that a toxic spill occurred at one of its copper mines on July 3 due to heavy rain, though the pollution was not exposed until July 12.

In the incident, more than 9,000 cubic meters of toxic wastewater spewed into the Tingjiang River and killed at least 1,890 tons of fish, according to the local environmental protection department. The mining company has promised to pay for the fish.

But fish farmers told China Daily their fish had been dying since June 5, about a month before the leakage was reported to have taken place.

"The fish started to die in early June. At first, I thought they were sick, so I bought fish medicine, but the situation just grew worse and worse," said Qiu Wenhu, 38, who reared fish for four years in the Huangxi village of Shanghang county.

The Huangxi village has the largest concentration of fish farming in Shanghang, where more than 70 out of its 100 households make a living by breeding fish.

Qiu was unaware of his fish having been poisoned until the company announced the toxic spill on July 12, by which time 80 percent of the 50,000 kg of fish in his pond had already died.

The local government arranged for the poisoned fish to be collected on July 13 and compensation was calculated according to weight at 6 yuan (88 cents) per kg.

"After the July leakage, I hardly had 10,000 kg of fish left, so the compensation will be less than 60,000 yuan," Qiu said. "But I borrowed 200,000 yuan to build the pond and spent 500 yuan every day to feed medicine to the fish. The loss is too much."

Other fish farmers in the village said they have suffered similar losses.

Another fish farmer, also surnamed Qiu, handed copies of two water test results to China Daily.

He said that after the massive fish deaths, he collected a water sample from his fish pond, which he took to the Guangdong Institute of Analysis and the Guangzhou Agricultural Standard and Supervisory Center.

The test results from the centers show 0.05 to 0.075mg/L of copper content in the water on June 23.

However, according to data from the Fujian agriculture authority, there was 0.014mg/L of copper content in the water on that day, which was three times lower than that found by the two testing centers in Guangzhou.

Qiu said he had appealed to the Shanghang environment protection department for the water to be tested in early June and was refused. So he was forced to take the sample outside Fujian for evidence.

Huangxi villagers confirmed Qiu's account. They said they had even blocked the gate of the Shanghang county government with dead fish on June 23 after their requests for testing were repeatedly rejected.

Local fishing departments insisted the dead fish were the result of having used improper methods of farming combined with an outbreak of illness, for which they distributed medicine to some farmers for their stocks.

The country government declined to comment on the issue on Wednesday.

Some villagers also claimed they have yet to receive any compensation for their losses.

"The government ordered the bank to pay our compensation, but the bank said it would not give us the money until we clear our debts," said fish farmer Qiu Yonglu.

Every fish farmer in the village borrowed an average of 100,000 to 200,000 yuan from the local rural cooperative bank to build their pond.

The bank demanded the villagers must sign an agreement to pay off their loans ahead of schedule, otherwise it will keep the compensation.