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Farmers protest over alleged lead poisoning
By Zhang Jianming and Shao Xiaoyi (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-25 05:57
MEISHAN, Zhejiang Province: Farmers staging a week-long protest against a
factory they say causes lead pollution finally felt vindicated as the local
government pledged to settle the problem yesterday.
The life of most villagers in Meishan Town in Changxing County of East
China's Zhejiang Province is now back to normal as they said they believe in the
government's efforts to solve the dispute.
"I trust the government that things will be settled on an equal footing," Hu
Fengqiang, 40, a local farmer from Qiuwu Village, told China Daily yesterday.
Farmers are waiting for the final environmental test results to see whether
or not the plant is affecting the surrounding environment, said Hu, whose
14-year-old son has been diagnosed with having a higher-than-normal
concentration of lead in his blood.
Hu's son is one of 700 children from Meishan Town who were diagnosed in May
with a lead concentration in their blood exceeding normal levels.
Although some children were diagnosed with lead levels above normal levels,
it does not necessarily mean they were poisoned by lead from the factory, said
Hu Yili, vice-director of the Changxing Health Bureau.
Hu said that there is no national standard for a child's blood lead content
and the current standard used for classifying normal or abnormal was introduced
from the United States, that is, 100 ug (microgrammes) per litre of blood.
About 1,300 children from Meishan Town have come to hospital to be checked
for possible lead poisoning with 58 per cent showing abnormalities in the
proportion of lead in their blood. However, only 5.5 per cent showed a higher
proportion about 250 ug (microgrammes) per litre of blood, which needs medical
treatment.
It is suspected that waste disposed by the Tian Neng Battery Company more
than 600 metres away from the nine neighbouring villages is to blame for the
poisoning, Hu said.
As the villagers staged protests at the factory, an environmental
investigation team composed of officials and experts from Zhejiang Provincial
Environmental Protection Bureau and volunteer farmers arrived at Meishan Town to
collect air, earth and water samples to confirm whether the cause is pollution
from the battery company, according to Zhang Quanzhen, chairman of CPPCC
Committee of Changxing County.
Teams of officials went around the villages, from door to door, telling
people that the government would settle the dispute in accordance with the law,
Zhang added.
On August 20, a serious confrontation broke out between the factory employees
and local farmers, who piled up cement slabs at the factory's gate and stopped
it operating for seven days.
Over 500 people threw stones and fought with each other when local police
were sent to the spot to prevent them from being injured. Some people even beat
the policemen and burned two police vehicles.
At 8:00pm that day, some people broke into the factory and set fire to it,
causing losses of 5 million yuan (US$616,500).
"The government is responsible for checking out the causes and all the
medical fees of the victims will be covered by the local government. The
government supports farmers to lodge their complaints through legal means,"
Zhang told China Daily yesterday.
The Tian Neng Battery Company has the IS014001 Authentication from the
country's environmental management system.
The latest investigation carried out in October 2004, by the local
environmental protection bureau showed that waste discharged from the factory
met the State standards, said Chen Yan, director of the Changxing Environmental
Protection Bureau.
The final cause of the pollution will be identified in one or two months,
Chen added.
(China Daily 08/25/2005 page2)
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