|
|
Leak Hits Yellow River
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126260957898114829.html
Diesel Spill in Tributary Contaminates China's Second-Longest Waterway
By ANDREW BROWNE
BEIJING -- A diesel spill has contaminated a stretch of China's Yellow River, officials said Monday, despite frantic efforts to contain its spread into the waterway, which provides drinking water to tens of millions of people.
Polluted water is seen while an environmental protection agency worker tries to clear the oil from the surface of the Wei River after diesel spilled from a broken pipeline on Wednesday.
The leak underscored the grave challenges to the environment posed by China's rapid economic growth. Chinese leaders face growing social unrest linked to environmental pollution. There were no immediate reports of public disturbances in the area.
Vice Premier Li Keqiang had ordered local officials to "strictly prevent leakage and pollution from flowing into the Yellow River and ensure the safety of drinking water for the masses," according to a Shaanxi provincial government news release.
The public-health scare began last Wednesday when diesel started gushing into the Wei River, a tributary of the Yellow River in northern China, from a ruptured pipeline operated by China National Petroleum Corp.
Over the weekend, workers threw 17 floating dams across the Wei to block the toxic diesel. But scientists discovered diesel traces in a reservoir behind a dam in Sanmenxia, a city about 100 kilometers downstream from the point where the Wei joins the Yellow River, an official in the Henan provincial environmental protection bureau said Monday.
The official said authorities had closed the gates of the dam, one of the largest along the Yellow River, halting power-generating turbines. A clean-up operation was under way in the reservoir. So far, no pollution had been detected downstream of Sanmenxia, the official said.
A vice governor of Henan province and other senior officials traveled to Sanmenxia, a city of about 2.2 million people, to lead pollution-control efforts, the environmental official said. The Yellow River flows from Shaanxi province into Henan, and is the country's second-longest river after the Yangtze.
Chinese state media said cities along the Yellow River are required to stockpile drinking water in preparation for such an emergency.
Untreated chemicals and waste flowing into China's river networks have created an environmental crisis that threatens human health and agricultural production. The Yellow River is dry in parts because of unchecked water diversion by cities along its path.
The accident recalled an earlier disaster in 2005, when a chemical spill in the Songhua River forced authorities to temporarily cut off water supplies for more than three million people in the northern city of Harbin. The spill resulted in the resignation of China's top environmental regulator.
A press official at the Shaanxi provincial government said the leak occurred during a test run of the pipeline. CNPC's General Manager Jiang Jiemin said in a statement on Monday that although preliminary control efforts had succeeded, clean-up operations were being extended further downstream along the Wei and "the situation is still severe."
—Ellen Zhu contributed to this article.
|
hits, Leak, river, yellow, 华尔街日报, hits, Leak, river, yellow, 华尔街日报, hits, Leak, river, yellow, 华尔街日报
|
狗仔卡
发表于 2010-1-5 13:52
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
楼主