Getting the Lead Out in China

Not the way you want to do it.

"Smelter poisons 1,354 in China; High lead levels found in children" by Michael Wines, New York Times | August 21, 2009

BEIJING - Lead pollution from a newly opened and unlicensed manganese smelter has poisoned more than 1,300 children in southeastern China’s Hunan province, state-run media said yesterday, the second mass lead poisoning in the past month.

Officials in Wenping, 970 miles south of Beijing, shut down the smelter, the Wugang Fine-Processed Manganese Smelting Factory, last week and detained two of its owners after about 1,000 local residents protested the poisoning, the English-language state newspaper China Daily reported. The plant’s general manager remains at large.

Oh, they better watch out.

And what is with the Chinese protests, huh? We are told its a lock-down society, but.... they sure take to the streets often enough. More than Amurkns!

Tests since then have found elevated levels of lead in the blood of 1,354 children, about seven of every 10 children who were examined, the official news agency, Xinhua, reported. The severity of the poisoning cannot be measured without further testing; 17 of the 83 children who received those tests have been hospitalized.

Lead poisoning damages the nervous and reproductive systems and can permanently cripple children’s growth and intellectual development. The report of poisoning in Wenping followed a similar event in Shaanxi province, in north-central China, where state news reports say 851 children living near the nation’s fourth-largest smelter have tested positive for lead poisoning since early August. More than 170 have been hospitalized.

Angry residents of two Shaanxi villages reportedly marched to the smelter on Monday, tearing down fences and attacking trucks before police officers restored order. Local officials have promised that the smelter, which produces lead and zinc, will not reopen until it meets pollution standards. On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that the Shaanxi smelter, in Changqing town, was under heavy guard by police and plainclothes officers. The officers sought to interrupt journalists’ interviews with local residents.

Here, the police don't need to interrupt; the papers simply never print it.

Pollution is a serious problem across China, where breakneck industrial development has fouled both air and water to sometimes extraordinary degrees.

And THAT is the REAL ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT, not fart mist.

Although the national government has promised cleanup measures, the World Bank says 59 percent of the water in China’s seven major rivers is unfit to drink, and the government says that the air in about a quarter of cities is unhealthy.

The Wugang manganese smelter is located in one of China’s major iron-and-steel centers. Manganese is often added to steel to increase its tensile strength. According to Xinhua, seven other smelters also operate in Wugang City, an area of about 700,000 residents that includes Wenping town....

A kindergarten and a primary and middle school are located within 1,700 feet of the smelter, Xinhua said.

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They execute those guys yet?

"China detains 15 for lead poison protests" by Associated Press | September 3, 2009

BEIJING - Police in central China detained 15 parents for a violent protest over factory pollution that left hundreds of local children with lead poisoning. Authorities accused them of links to the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, villagers said yesterday.

Villagers mocked the accusation, saying authorities were using the charge to take revenge against parents involved in the Aug. 8 unrest in Hunan Province’s Wenping township that broke out after more than 1,300 children were poisoned by emissions from a manganese-processing plant. Falun Gong practitioners are relentlessly persecuted by Chinese authorities.

Anger is growing in China over public safety scandals in which children have been the main victims. The ruling Communist Party is worried mass protests will threaten the country’s social stability and challenge its grip on power.

I don't know about the challenge power part (U.S. covert ops), but why is it the CHINESE CARE MORE about what their people think than the U.S. GOVERNMENT, hanh?

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