The legacy of mining in western Hunan: In addition to "Border City", there are lead-poisoned children here.
△Huayuan County, Hunan Province, the slogans next to the mine processing plant
The border town of Chadong, which is located in the western part of Hunan province, is now a famous tourist attraction in Hunan after Shen Congwen depicted its unique customs and culture in his novel "Border Town".
Along with Huayuan County, several townships around Biancheng are known for their rich reserves of non-ferrous metals. More than 20 kinds of minerals have been proved in Huayuan, of which manganese ore and lead-zinc ore reserves rank second and third respectively in China. Mining-related output once accounted for more than 90 percent of the county's total industrial output value.
Tourism mode, the border town maintains a relatively natural and primitive state. The mineral-rich townships such as Cat Township and Unity Township have embarked on a different path after being driven by resource development, and the local economy has been able to grow by leaps and bounds. But behind the high industrial output value, is the development process of pollution and destruction of the constant intrusion.
On the surface, these townships are no different from the border towns: wooden buildings of the Miao ethnic group, rice paddies where fish and ducks swim, and villages surrounded by mountains. What's different is the presence of children with blood lead levels three times higher than the limit, contaminated soil and water, and numerous tailings ponds that lie in the hills like ticking time bombs.
In 2013, the local government put forward "Huayuan into the garden" urban and rural construction governance goals, once chaotic and disorderly mining has been integrated in a series of actions. A recent field investigation found that, as a pillar industry of the county's economy, some non-compliance in mining processing still exists. Under the continuous mining holes and tailing ponds, the toxic legacy is far from clear, and pollution is still continuing.
Lead-poisoned children
When his wife gave birth to their third child, Wu Zhihua discussed with family planning staff: "Our second son is not well, so can he be exempted from paying the fine." The second son suffers from epilepsy and dwarfism, and his father, Wu Zhihua, knows it well: it has nothing to do with the village's lead and zinc mine.
Wu Zhihua is a mine truck driver, home and work are in Huayuan County, Cat Township, Dongli Village. Three years ago, two boys in the family were found to be "children with moderate lead poisoning". According to China's blood lead diagnostic standards: the normal level of lead in children's blood should be 0-99 micrograms per liter. The highest test result for Wu Zhihua's youngest son was 413 micrograms per liter, exceeding the limit by three times.
Initially, the villagers didn't realize the pollution had invaded their children's bodies. Mining in Dongli village has been going on for about 20 years. The villagers noticed that the water level had dropped, dust had increased and crops might be affected, but there was little thought given to health.
The testing fiasco began in 2014. The village's only foreigner, a Wenzhou man who specializes in repairing tires on mining trucks, noticed that his children were developing late, and after a visit to the hospital in 2014, it was discovered that they had excessive blood lead levels.
To this point, the village people realized the danger. A villager in Dongli Village, Wang Enze, recalled that the total **** at that time, there were 54 children were examined, the results showed that all the blood lead exceeded the standard.
After realizing the seriousness of the problem, Huayuan County's disease control department had sent people to the village to take blood tests for the children. The government twice chartered buses to organize the children to go to the hospital attached to the Hunan Provincial Institute of Occupational Disease Control and Prevention for treatment, and covered the medical expenses. But according to villagers, the government took no further action after that.
For the incident of blood lead exceeding the standard, deep once reporter asked whether the village received mining enterprises related compensation, Wang Enze waved his hand, making a stuffed pocket action: "The relationship behind the complex."
△ Unity Township, Lao Wangzhai Village, most villagers buy buckets of water to drink
Wu Zhihua at the end of 2016 had to communicate with the local authorities, the other side said, "Now the government does not have the funds, and wait for the end of the year to talk about". A year has passed, the villagers did not wait to hear back. Provincial hospitals have called to urge to take the child to review, Wu Zhihua did not go, because there is no money.
Wu Zhihua, a family of seven, his father is paralyzed, his mother cooks and farms, his wife takes care of three children in town, he is the only labor force in the family, and he earns up to 4,000 or 5,000 yuan a month from driving, which is barely enough to meet the family's daily expenses.
Today, despite the pollution, Wu still can't leave the mine, and he has to work to earn a living.
Wu Zhihua's family kept the earliest of the test forms from Hunan Children's Hospital. It was August 2014, when he took his second son to Changsha for a checkup at his own expense, when his blood lead level was 235 micrograms per liter.
In October 2014, the Hua Yuan County CDC tested Wu Zhihua's second son's blood lead level at 413 micrograms per liter. in September 2015, the number became 404 micrograms per liter, still exceeding the standard by three times. During this year, the child had received two courses of lead-expelling treatment, and the recommendation column on the diagnosis clearly states, "Avoid exposure to lead contamination, and review the blood lead in one month."
Two more years have passed since then, and the lead and zinc mine next to the village has continued to operate as usual, and the child has never been retested.
"Home is here, where can people go?" Wu Zhihua's words are full of helplessness.
△Wu Zhihua's second son's test sheet shows that the blood lead content in his body exceeded the standard by three times?
Polluted soil and rice
Liu Xiu Xiu posted a video on Oct. 24 in her circle of friends in Lao Wangzhai village in Unity Township, 21 kilometers from Dongli Village. The image shows a white stream of water trickling down from a high place. She was afraid that people outside the village would not believe it, deliberately explaining that it was taken in the field that morning, and added a cross-examination: "How can people survive with this water?"
Lao Wangzhai village is situated halfway up the mountainside, the villagers look up and can see a gray patch of the mine between the green hills, where the water is also flowing down the direction. For a long time, the villagers drew the mountain spring water to their homes. After the mine was developed, they found their drinking water had changed.
Usually better, if it is a rainy day, the water pipe will always flow out of the dregs, and even the water is white, the villagers will be the cause of the tailings water pollution. An old man to the deep once reporter spit complained: "No kidding, we drink this is medicine water ah."
In the mountains, ore washing and processing down the tailings is the color of the thicker off-white, which contains both the mineral processing agents and lime, a steady stream of daily flow to the nearby tailings pond. Villagers believe that some mining enterprises do not set up protective measures in accordance with the regulations, resulting in tailings water pollution of drinking water sources.
Villager Wang Chengwei carefully calculated that the surrounding tailings ponds can affect their village total **** there are five, belonging to the SITC company and several other large industry players.
Today, most villagers are still using the water flowing down from the mountains to wash vegetables and cook, and drinking 8 yuan a barrel of bottled water. Many villagers have installed water purifiers at home at their own expense, while others have bought portable water testing pens.
They use the "points" displayed on the pen to differentiate between good and bad water quality. The water purifier filtered water shows 006, the villagers called "6 points", the water flowing down the mountain is 297 points. 297 value is high, but not more than the relevant national standards. Villagers do not know is that the number behind the ppm is the water hardness unit, refers to the concentration of calcium and magnesium ions in the water, and lead, mercury and other heavy metal elements can not be measured by the test pen.
△ Unity Township, Lao Wangzhai Village, some villagers purchased a water quality testing pen
Villagers Wu Xiuqin recalled that the water purifier company to do sales promotion has also done the test, the value of the time is more than 400, and after the rain and sunny days when the results will be measured and will not be the same. Wu Xiuqin believes that she and several other elderly people in the village have stones and long-term consumption of water with a high number of points related.
In addition to drinking water, soil and crops around the mine are generally affected. Soil remediation experts, the Guangdong Provincial Institute of Ecological and Environmental Technology researcher Chen Nengchang analysis, tailings, if through the dust, wastewater, waste residue and other forms of diffusion into the surrounding environment, there may be a number of heavy metal elements into the water or soil, and then through the drinking water and food deposition in the human body, a typical case such as Japan Shentong Chuan cadmium contaminated rice paddies caused by the "pain pain pain disease
At the annual meeting of the Forum on Health, Environment and Development held in Beijing in November this year, Hu Yuming, an expert from the Hunan Provincial Center for Disease Control, announced the results of the study. He had conducted a special monitoring survey on more than 1,000 circulating rice samples in cities, counties and districts of Hunan Province from 2011-2015, which showed that the average cadmium exceedance rate in rice was 24.3%."
Hu Yuming's team also did a survey to detect cadmium in specimens by collecting biological samples such as urine and blood through epidemiological surveys and physical examinations of selected populations (918 valid samples) in Hunan province. The results showed that the occurrence of chronic mild cadmium poisoning up to 79.09%.
Cadmium in rice is generally thought to come from contaminated soil. Hu Yu Ming pointed out in the information: metal mining is Hunan Province, "the township of non-ferrous metals," one of the causes of cadmium contamination of soil, in the mining, mine acidic wastewater, containing a large number of cadmium ions, wastewater into the? River, soil, resulting in heavy metal pollution.
In July this year, an environmental organization to Huayuan County research, in the five villages around the mine to collect 10 samples, and the border town of two non-mining samples for comparison, and then submitted to a third-party independent laboratory for testing.
The test results show that in the mining area around the village soil a, arsenic, cadmium, lead, zinc and other four heavy metal elements exist in excess of the phenomenon, each element exceeds the rate of more than 80%, of which cadmium and zinc exceeded the rate of 100%, cadmium exceeded the highest element 87.8 times. In contrast, the lead and zinc content in the soil of non-mining areas of the control group did not exceed the standard, and the remaining two exceeded the value of not more than one times.
The above test, about the grain a, mining villages around the test results show that: arsenic, lead, chromium and other three heavy metal elements exist in excess of the phenomenon, cadmium element does not exceed the standard. Among them, the chromium element exceeds the standard rate of 100%, the highest lead element exceeds the standard 6 times. In contrast, the sample of the border town, only one chromium exceeded 0.25 times, the rest did not exceed or lack of relevant industry standards.
△Tailings water flows down the mountain
Tailings ponds surrounding villages
In the villagers' view, only a small amount of tailings water enters the water and soil through leaks, while the vast majority of tailings are discharged into man-made ponds made of heaped dams through pipelines.
Deeply once in the cat township and unity township field visits found that the mine around the ambush of large and small tailings ponds. From the satellite map, the exposed mountains near the mine are dark gray, always found a piece or several white areas, the edge of the bluish or reddish, like scars abruptly spread in the mountains. These white areas are tailings storage, its role is to stockpile the waste after beneficiation, tailings waste often contains some heavy metal elements, lime used in the beneficiation process, as well as a variety of chemicals.
Huayuan County government official website information shows that in 2009, the county **** there are 98 tailings ponds, which are in the state of "dangerous" 4, "dangerous" 14, "sick" 13. There are 98 tailing ponds, of which 4 are in the state of "dangerous", 14 are "dangerous" and 13 are "sick". More than a quarter of the tailings ponds do not have flooding and seepage measures or do not meet the standards. By 2011, the number of tailings ponds in the county had been reduced to 89.
The number of tailing ponds is in a dynamic state of flux. Li Jianjun, of Flaming Earth Village, said some of the tailings ponds around his village have been out of use for years but have not been restored; some have been reused for farming after being closed and covered with less than a meter of soil, and some have been closed for some time and then reopened. The easiest to recognize are those in use, with a steady stream of tailings sinking in, the reservoir expanding uninterruptedly, and tailings water floating on the surface.
△Tailings ponds in use
Li Jianjun used to work at a mine next to his village. In his opinion, the mining industry "water is very deep", the hole in the bosses back and forth between the hands of the "big eat small" happens from time to time. Some bosses have mines without reservoirs and can only borrow reservoirs to discharge, so some tailings ponds have wastewater from several companies.
Deep once in the town of Biancheng flame soil village investigation found that the largest nearby tailings pond has been close to the peak, by the side of the mountain there are trees submerged in them, the inner side of the mountain did not see protective measures. According to a worker at the scene, the tailings pond belongs to SITC, which has been used for more than 10 years and is piled up to a depth of more than 80 meters.
These types of giant tailings ponds are like weirs, with the risk of dam failure and leakage. From a safety point of view, they are man-made mudslide hazards with high potential energy, like untimely bombs ambushed in the mountains.
September 2008, Shanxi Xiangfen had a tailings pond dam failure accident, killing 277 people, four missing and 33 injured. 2010, Huayuan County also had a dam failure accident that killed six people. After this, the local government to strengthen the tailing on the management of mining reservoirs, the establishment of supervision of flood control and flood control responsibility system, by the county leaders one-to-one responsible for key tailing reservoirs.
Chen Nengchang analyzed that tailings ponds, if not managed properly, may leak, collapse, mudslide and other risks. If they are built and maintained in full compliance with standards, the risk of related geologic disasters will be much smaller.
Behind the tailings ponds is the mineral industry, which creates huge economic benefits, and their presence likewise changes the trajectory of life for neighboring villagers.
Flame earth village entrance, a relocation program effect map posted on the wall, the entire village population is expected to move away in 2018, but the villagers are not sure which day to move. Li Jianjun understands that their village is located in an air-mining zone, so they can't afford not to move. But he noticed that the program does not appear in the words related to the mine, which is indicated as "the project of poverty alleviation and resettlement".
The relocation rendering faces a road where villagers stop trucks transporting lead and zinc powders and charge drivers 250 yuan per trip for erosion fees.
"Mining trucks do not stop, only to stop the transportation of products (lead and zinc powder) of the car", the reason, Li Jianjun does not explain, only that the boss of the mining enterprise has been authorized to the driver to pay the fee. A day down, can stop a few trips is not a fixed number. Villagers participate voluntarily, up to more than 40 people, a car of money divided into the hands of each person will not be more than 10 dollars.
△Biancheng Township, a tailings pond in Flaming Earth Village
Dripping lead and zinc powder
On the road from Longtan Township to Huayuan County, there is a steady stream of vehicles transporting ore powder. Black and gray stains often remain on the back doors of the trucks, and shade nets tightly cover the compartments. They drive out of the mineral processing plant, dripping and spilling all the way to the processing plant on the outskirts of the county.
Wang Gui, a villager from Dongli village, is wary of the black and silver gray on the road. It's easy to tell the difference between the two: the black is lead, and the silver-gray is zinc. There are five mining districts around their village, belonging to three companies, including Taifeng Mining, and dozens of vehicles transporting zinc and lead powder come out of here every day.
Wang Gui, whose home is just down the road from a non-stop stream of transport trucks during the day, has surrounded his house with a plastic shed covered in dust. The concrete pavement in front of the door, clearly visible black and gray two liquids, a small amount of time gathered into a puddle, a large amount of time will follow the terrain to the low flow.
△ Dongli village, the roadside is paddy fields, transport trucks passing through the dust fell on the plants
Previously, Wang Gui was a small boss of a mine, after experiencing a decline in mine prices and industrial consolidation, he went bankrupt and changed his profession.
Wang Gui, who is familiar with the mining industry, pointed to the dust on the ground and told SZDO that it had come from a beneficiation plant not far away, and would be shipped to a factory on the outskirts of the city for further processing. And even though they are primary products, these lead and zinc powders are more than 50 percent pure. He is convinced that this is the cause of his grandson's excessive blood lead, "Children play on the road, such a high concentration of lead powder is inhaled into the body, how can not exceed the standard."
A video taken by Wang Gui shows that the transportation trucks from Dongli Village spilled all the way out, and the ground was full of black stains. Deep once consulted a lead and zinc mining industry veteran in this regard, which said: from the video, there are strands of water flowing out during transportation, indicating that the ore dressing plant to take a sedimentation tank-type dewatering method, the moisture content of the visual estimate of between 20% and 25%. And really filter out of the mineral powder with a filter, the moisture will be controlled at 15% or less, water in the transportation process basically will not be squeezed out.
The above senior said, the country has not yet a clear specification in this regard, and the industry norms generally require that the moisture content is controlled at less than 20%. Some smaller enterprises may not purchase filtration equipment and directly adopt this artificial plus sedimentation tank practice.
Deep once field visits to a number of mining areas in Cat Township, Longtan Township, and Unity Township, all found that there were drips and leaks of mineral powder transport trucks in the process of driving, while there were many rice paddies next to the highway, and many of the plants along the roadside were covered with gray dust.
△Dongli village collectively purchased a sprinkler to reduce the dust
Despite living in a polluted environment for a long time, none of the adults in Dongli village have had their blood lead checked. Villagers interviewed all said, "Regardless of adults, children are emphasized first."
Data shows that in recent years, the country has occurred a number of children's blood lead exceeded the standard and cadmium rice incident, mostly due to the residence and soil environment there are industrial pollution sources. In September this year, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Agriculture jointly issued the "Agricultural Land Soil Environment Management Measures (Trial)", which came into force on November 1st.
November 27, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Agriculture, the relevant person in charge of answering media interviews emphasized: soil pollution prevention and control will be an important element of environmental law enforcement. Relevant departments will strengthen law enforcement supervision, non-ferrous metal mining and other industries as the focus, strict implementation of cadmium, mercury, arsenic, lead, chromium and other heavy metal emission standards, the implementation of the relevant total amount of control indicators, and cut off the chain of pollutants into the farmland.