After Benzene Spill, Lanzhou Residents Learn Water Sytem Ran Through Toxic Sites For Decades

[hatrack]

(Beijing) – A recent water contamination accident in Lanzhou, the capital of the northwestern province of Gansu, triggered panic amid revelations the city's facilities carrying drinking water have for decades run through areas shared by chemical plants. In recent decades, the China National Petroleum Co. (CNPC) Lanzhou Petrochemical unit has reported a couple of accidents that caused oil leaks that likely allowed pollutants to seep into the ground surrounding the facilities that carry Lanzhou's only source of drinking water: the Yellow River. It was inevitable that the water running through the channels became polluted by the waste seeping into the ground.

In 2007, the Lanzhou government formed a joint venture, Lanzhou Veolia Water Co., with Veolia China, a unit of the French firm Veolia Environnement, to operate the city's water supply system. Veolia China holds 45 percent of the company. That year Lanzhou Veolia released a risk warning for the drinking water system.

But no concrete measures were taken except for repairing an underground pipeline in 2008 funded by the government. Indeed, any large-scale renovation of the water system, which has nearly 300 households above it, will be a complicated issue for both the government and the company. In early April, pollution from the chemical plants finally found its way into the water supply culverts, at a broken concrete joint. That is how benzene, a cancer-inducing chemical, entered the city's drinking water system.

Benzene is a colorless, noxious hydrocarbon which is confirmed by the World Health Organization to cause leukemia and cancer. It is also a major pollutant produced in the petrochemical industry. China has included benzene for pollutant tests only irregularly, requiring testing twice a year. Officials from the Lanzhou Veolia say that the company performed a regular inspection on the city's tap water in July 2013 and found nothing out of the ordinary. The company then performed another planned inspection on April 2, and eight days later the result showed that benzene levels were 20 times higher than national standards.

EDIT

http://english.caixin.com/2014-04-24/100669924.html

[Demeter]

1. Chinese immigrant here just lost her daughter (in China) to leukemia

They couldn't find a bone marrow donor, since donations are not as common there.