Beijing still not releasing soil pollution data: Xinhua
Technical staff examine soil contaminated by heavy metal pollution. (File photo/Huang Chih-liang)
China's
Ministry of Environmental Protection will not issue data related to
soil pollution for the time being but will discuss the situation after
an in-depth investigation, the ministry confirmed on Thursday. The
ministry said it will be difficult to investigate soil pollution
nationwide, adding that it will conduct further investigations in
heavily polluted areas.
In January, Beijing lawyer Dong Zhengwei
sent an application to the ministry asking it to issue soil pollution
data, as well as create detailed measures to handle it.
The
ministry said in February that the data is a state secret and refused to
issue it. Dong was not satisfied and sent a second request. In response
the ministry said soil pollution is still being investigated and
related data remains a state secret, adding that data will be released
after further evaluation. After news of Dong's requests spread online,
many people began to wonder just how polluted the country's soil is.
Ma
Jun, head of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said in
an interview with the Legal Daily that polluted soil may affect public
health via food, crops and underground water.
"Soil pollution is
related to public health. Therefore, the public should have the right to
be informed about the situation," Ma said.
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China says massive area of its soil polluted
by Staff Writers
Beijing (AFP) April 17, 2014
More dead pigs found in China river: report
Beijing
(AFP) April 17, 2014 - At least 170 dead pigs have been found in a
Chinese river, state media reported Thursday -- the latest in a string
of similar incidents that have raised fears over food safety.The
animals were found floating in a tributary of China's second-longest
waterway, the Yellow River, in northwestern Qinghai province, the
official Xinhua news agency said.The grim discovery follows a series of
scandals involving dead pigs in Chinese rivers. Last year 16,000
carcasses were found drifting through the main waterway of the
commercial hub of Shanghai.In Qinghai -- the furthest west such an
incident has been reported -- "the source of the dead pigs is still
under investigation," Xinhua said, citing local authorities.Industry
analysts say sick pigs are sometimes dumped in rivers by farmers hoping
to avoid paying the costs of disposing of the animals by other means.Around
500 dead pigs are recovered every month from a Chinese reservoir in the
southwestern province of Sichuan, state-run media reported in March.
Authorities also found 157 dead pigs last month in a river in central Jiangxi province.
China is a major producer of pork, which surveys have found to be the country's most popular meat. |
A
huge area of China's soil covering more than twice the size of Spain is
estimated to be polluted, the government said Thursday, announcing
findings of a survey previously kept secret.
Of about 6.3 million
square kilometres (2.4 million square miles) of soil surveyed -- roughly
two thirds of China's total area -- 16.1 percent is thought to be
polluted, the environmental protection ministry said in a report.
The study, which appeared on its website, blamed mining and farming practices among other causes.
"The
national soil pollution situation is not positive," the ministry said,
adding that more than 19 percent of the farmland which was surveyed is
polluted.
The ministry last year described the results of its soil
pollution survey as a state secret and refused to release the results, a
move which incensed environmental campaigners.
The government has
come under increasing pressure in recent years to take action to
improve the environment, with large parts of the country repeatedly
blanketed in thick smog and waterways and land polluted.
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Filth to Table
Relentless Pollution is Poisoning China’s Food, Soil
© Getty Images
In
many parts of China, officials are caught between two competing
priorities: industrial development and food production. Most often,
officials’ prime concern is industrial development—characterized by
factories and mining, usually—since it is the bigger driver of economic
growth. But, predictably, unfettered industrial development results in
extremely poor conditions for food production. And it’s getting worse.
Much worse. An
article in yesterday’s
New York Times has some sobering statistics.
An
alarming glimpse of official findings came on Monday, when a vice
minister of land and resources, Wang Shiyuan, said at a news conference
in Beijing that eight million acres of China’s farmland, equal to the
size of Maryland, had become so polluted that planting crops on it
“should not be allowed.” [...]
One-sixth of China’s arable land —
nearly 50 million acres — suffers from soil pollution, according to a
book published this year by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
The book, “Soil Pollution and Physical Health,” said that more than 13
million tons of crops harvested each year were contaminated with heavy
metals, and that 22 million acres of farmland were affected by
pesticides.
The result of farming on polluted land is
unsurprising: poisoned food. 155 batches of rice collected from markets
and restaurants in Guangdong Province in May were found to have excess
levels of cadmium.
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