Official warns against heavy metal pollution in China
Monday, 02 Nov 2009
China Daily reported that environmental protection officials urged local governments to ward off heavy metal pollution and beef up efforts to ensure the safety of drinking water.
Mr Zhang Lijun vice minister of environmental protection said the quality of one fifth of the country drinking water sources failed to reach national standards, leaving 90 million people with no access to clean water.
He said that "The result is based on routine monitoring, which examines only basic pollutants. At these source areas, the concentration of some pollutants, such as coliform bacteria and ammonia nitrogen is higher than the national standards."
He added that "If we use the 109 indicator evaluation system which includes tests on the concentration of heavy metals and organic toxins, the result will be worse.”
Official warns against heavy metal pollution China has been faced with an increasing number of major heavy metal pollution incidents. Several lead poisoning cases involving thousands of children across the country have sparked protests earlier this year.
Mr Zhang said some local governments are still putting more emphasis on economic growth than on the environment and people health. He urged officials from local environmental protection bureaus to stick to their responsibilities and not approve projects that pollute. He said that "I've learned that in some areas, local governments are trying to shrink the protection zone for drinking water sources, to make room for more development projects, regardless of their impact on the environment."
He added that "The ministry and local protection bureaus should never approve a request for re designing the protection zone for such purposes."
Mr Zhang also told local environment authorities to be wary of industrial projects that involve heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and arsenic.
The ministry is revising a plan for heavy metal pollution. The State Council will release the plan soon.
The protection of drinking water is also hampered by insufficient water quality monitoring equipment. Most of the country environment monitoring stations still does not have the facilities to carry out examinations for all the 109 water pollution indicators.
