Latest Articles by Lu Dongting

What if Beijing's rivers ran clear?

Dongting Lu — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:22:00 +0000

Beijing's waterways suffer from severe pollution. But even if they did not, the residents of the capital might present an even greater threat, writes Lu

Dongting.

At some of Beijing's beauty spots, you can still find fresh, clear water flowing from underground springs: water which is eagerly sought by city residents, who fill up plastic containers to drink or to use in their cooking.

This phenomenon can be seen at many of Beijing's best-known sites, including Badachu Park and the Xiangshan Botanical Gardens. Local authorities have put up signs prohibiting unauthorised water collection, but to no effect.

Avid anglers

The capital’s anglers are even more numerous. They fill up the train at six in the morning from Beijing South Station, carrying a jumble of fishing rods, stools and nets, all heading for a series of reservoirs on the Yongding River.

These fisherfolk, of all ages and backgrounds, often know each other from the time they spend sitting around Beijing's lakes, rivers and canals. Visit any body of water in Beijing, and you will see them holding out their fishing rods hopefully.

And they really do sit around any body of water: most are stagnant, poisoned or lifeless. But nevertheless, the eager anglers still try their luck.

I have always wondered why they go fishing: is it to eat? Hardly. Is it a hobby? Unlikely: China has little tradition of catching fish with a line. So what keeps them coming back? Is it just something to do?

There are those who prefer to use nets to catch their fish. As soon as the water level is low enough, they roll up their trousers, wade in and set their nets – or anything else they can use to catch fish. One group prefers to electrocute its prey, riding around on motorbikes and stopping here and there to dip their equipment in the water and scoop up the stunned fish.

In February, the Beijing Water Authority announced that rate of water treatment had reached 90%, meaning the target for the Olympics had been attained a year in advance. But take a look and you will find that Beijing’s waterways are still plagued by low water levels, unclean water and, further downstream, a lack of surviving wetlands. And despite this, there are still hordes of anglers out on the water.

Determined bathers

Beijing is also home to a group of outdoor swimmers that can be found in and around the city’s lakes.

One of these lakes is Yuyuantan, in west central Beijing. This lake links up with Kunming Lake in the city’s northwest. In the 1960s, a canal was built to bring water from the Miyun Reservoir to Kunming Lake. Since some of Beijing's waterworks were located beside Yuyuantan, an extra canal was built to link the two bodies of water.

The water quality in Yuyuantan is above average, making it a popular destination for bathers. The park authorities have erected signs beside certain spots, warning them that since 1996, almost 100 people have died as a result of swimming in the lake. But swimmers still laugh and chat next to the sign – even bringing buckets of water from home to wash in after their swim.

Shichahai is a network of six lakes that stretches from the central government complex at Zhongnanhai through Beihai Park to Qianhai, Houhai and peaceful Xihai. The lakes took shape during the Yuan Dynasty and are closely linked with the history of the capital. The development of an entertainment industry around Qianhai and Houhai led to greater efforts to improve water quality; these include pollution control and bringing in clean water from the Chang River, which connects to Yuyuantan and Kunming Lake. The Shichahai bathers are there all year round; even the occasional deaths have not discouraged them.

Swimmers are also found at other locations in Beijing, even where the water quality is very poor. It is as if nothing can stop them – not the weather, the dirty water or the mystified stares of passers by.

However, the state of Beijing’s water does put off most of the capital’s residents from swimming. What would the result be if the water ran clear, if all of Beijing's 20 million residents decided to take up swimming in the waters of the city?

Fish food

Beijing's water pollution has given rise to a new industry: catching and farming water fleas. These are popular as food for pet fish; anyone living near a dirty river – the fleas are drawn to the poor sanitation – can easily bag enough to keep their goldfish happy. Professional fish breeders will don waders and spend a whole day collecting fleas.

Liangshui River is a natural river that runs from Beijing’s northwest to southeast, but in recent years it has become an important route for getting polluted water out of the city. Once it passes a water treatment plant at the city’s fourth ring road, untreated water enters the river, and it becomes steadily filthier. The water fleas are caught in this water, stored in riverside pools and sold on to wholesalers, who sell them to retailers in the city’s fish markets.

If Beijing's rivers were cleaned up, this industry would die.

And if Beijing's waterways really became clean, pure and full of life, what damage would the people do? Everyone is attracted to water, it revitalises the soul just as drinking it sustains our bodies. This is no crime, but if the capital’s water is ever cleaned up, perhaps the residents will have to restrain their love of water, or at least find another way to express it. Else it will not stay clean for long.

Lu Dongting is a Beijing-based reporter.

Homepage photo by Doncorleon.

How volunteers can help freedom of information

Dongting Lu — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:51:00 +0000

Transparency regulations for business and government will help China’s ailing environment, writes Lu Dongting. But they will not go far enough, unless they incorporate the important work of environmental volunteers.

The new transparency regulations, recently released by China’s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA),have generated a lot of debate. But reading the document, I found myself asking: “If we only end up reading official information, what is the point in transparency?”

Successful public participation in environmental policy-making requires that relevant information is made freely available, and resulting public opinion is taken into account.

Environmental protection is often restricted to the actions of business and government. Businesses are required to make environmental information public, and the government now discloses regional environmental information with greater detail than before. This lets the public know where pollution is coming from, and helps them understand the overall local situation

This information will help the public learn about environmental protection. The more detailed it is, the better the public will be able to form their own opinions – and participate to a greater degree in environmental decision-making.

The public can acquire environmental information in various ways; waiting for the government or business to provide it is only one method. The public can also take the initiative: seeking out information; surveying the environment situation; and using its own potential to educate itself. It is like the difference between passive models of education: where children sit at desks, trying to absorb what the teacher tells them; and active methods where the students use their own initiative to learn.

The public often complain that government fails to supply what they need, as if they cannot supply it themselves. Sometimes I think the public is indolent, almost proud of its lack of interest. What kind of society is this, where 1.3 billion people go no further than read official pronouncements and accept them, regardless of their accuracy or detail? Can the people only gain knowledge the government hands down to them?

We live in an age of democracy and individual initiative, with extremely successful NGOs at work, yet the government is still the largest “public interest organisation”. The people should not just rely on its announcements, they should create them. We should all work together to gain accurate knowledge of the society in which we live.

Certain Chinese environmental organisations have been carrying out long-term public education projects. An important method is to bring the public closer to nature, appreciating its beauty through activities such as bird-watching, or understanding its problems by carrying out surveys of water pollution. We can gain an understanding and respect for nature, and its majesty and mystery. And learning about nature’s problems – which are mainly the consequences of human actions – can engender a sense of responsibility and consideration of how to improve the environment.

There has been a certain degree of success. Many people now understand their local environment, and are able to identify sources of pollution or consider environmental issues from a wider point of view. The number of volunteers is increasing annually, with some becoming experts.

But problems remain. There is still no national network of environmental organisations. All Chinese cities of a certain size should have robust organisations that can teach locals about their environment, but even provincial capitals often lack such a group. Organisations such as science committees, university departments, forestry and water departments should be facilitating public learning and gathering environmental information, but they are not. There is also a lack of continuity: many groups launch a flurry of short-term projects, but fail to sustain them and do little to build up their reputation. Future society will require “public environmental service providers”, groups will need to gather and monitor information about the local environment to build public credibility. This must be done in a systematic, long-term manner. Activities should be held weekly, and each event should cover a different aspect of nature-watching. The organisation should mobilise and organise the public: they should find and work with local experts, participate in and draw attention to local debate.

It is a Herculean task that SEPA and local environmental authorities are faced with. They need to help develop local environmental organisations so they can undertake this work. It is quite simple: let local people provide the funding, participate in the projects and share the results. Then produce a regular overview of the national environmental situation as revealed through volunteer efforts, which can complement information released by government and business. This is essential for effective public participation in environmental decision-making.

The public do not lack intelligence, ability, or even funding – they just lack the organisation to actively participate. Environmental organisations can help the public and government do more for transparency of environmental information; all that is needed is to establish these local organisations as soon as possible. Those that exist should be re-invigorated; and where they do not exist, they should be brought into being.

Dongting Lu is a Beijing-based reporter.

Homepage photo by Shanghai Sky

Can Zibo really turn green?

Dongting Lu — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:14:00 +0000

An east China city's hopes for clear water and blue skies have been shattered by companies that continually flout environmental regulations. Lu

Dongting reports from Shandong province.

Chang Benfeng, Wang Bingwen and Zhou Jingxin live in a residential compound in the town of Zhongbu, near the city of Zibo in east China's Shandong province. They showed me the buildings where they live and the pollution they have endured in recent years. Chang placed a magnet on the ground, and demonstrated how it instantly attracted a layer of iron particles, of which a new layer falls from the sky every day. Over the northern and eastern walls of the compound, trucks laden with iron ore and coal rumbled back and forth, stirring up a "black snow" of dust and iron particles.

The compound consists of 29 buildings constructed by Shengli Oilfield for workers at Zibo's iron and steel operation. It was designed to be an orderly, close-knit and green community. and the 900 residents used to describe it as something of a utopia. But all that was to change in 2004, when Jinling Iron set up shop next door.

Song Xichen, deputy general manager of Shengli Iron and Steel, explained that since 2003 the price of iron ore has rocketed from 240 yuan (US$32) a tonne to about 1,240 yuan (US$164) today. This led Jinling Iron to ignore environmental concerns and set up Iron Eagle: a huge iron smelting operation next door to the residential compound. Dust from the stockyard and the trucks, soot from the chimneys and non-stop noise from loaders and bulldozers began to torment the residents.

Soon they had had enough. They complained to the authorities about this "environmental calamity" and addressed the firm directly on a number of occasions, but there was little improvement. They also tried to sue the company, but both the local and city courts found reasons not to hear the case.

On November 24, 2005, Zibo’s environment authorities informed Iron Eagle that they were in breach of the Environmental Protection Law and the Environmental Impact Assessment Law, and announced that the firm was responsible for "relatively prominent environmental problems." It was fined for environmental damage, and swift changes were demanded. But a year and a half later, there still have been no real improvements.

Zibo is currently turning itself into an "ecological city." Its action plan, dubbed "clear water and blue skies," is in its final year and is crucial to its goal of becoming a "national model environmental city." It would be reasonable, then, to expect the city to clean up its air and carry out environmental impact assessments in its development and planning. But public complaints say that chimneys continue to belch fumes all over the city. I spent an afternoon investigating, and found that in the fields surrounding the city there were unlicensed smelters every few kilometres, the majority of which were built in the last two years. And more are still being built, polluting the air and taking up space on fertile fields.

I obtained a copy of a Zibo government statement about the firms blamed for the city missing its environmental targets, published on April 19this year. It included a list of companies that failed to carry out environmental protection measures, including Iron Eagle and some 20 others. The notice demanded they meet environmental protection standards by the end of May. Another 263 firms, many either in Zibo’s ceramics industry or the iron and steel sector, were also required to reduce dust, soot and sulphur dioxide emissions by October 31.

But the month of May has already passed, and have those firms cleaned up their act? According to Zibo’s environmental authorities, they have not. The head of Zibo Environmental Bureau’s complaints department, Wang Deshi, made this clear: “We didn’t approve any of these firms when they started up, nor would we have been able to. With the state so concerned with environmental protection at the moment, I doubt they would have been approved at provincial or national level either.”

Standing in front of the notice board at the Zibo Environmental Bureau, local residents still want to know why these firms can keep on polluting, despite failing in their environmental responsibilities. When will Zibo’s dreams of clear water and blue skies come true?

Dongting Lu is a Beijing-based reporter.