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godzilla 22 July 2006 Habitat 142 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

AP

The murky green Dasha River has been dirty for decades, polluted by coal mines and steel mills that make it fit only for watering livestock and crops downstream.

Then a truck overturned on a windy, mountain road this month, dumping at least 60 tons of potentially carcinogenic coal tar into the water. That spill killed off the Dasha’s remaining small fish, shrimp and frogs; stressed an already hard-pressed ecosystem; and incensed locals.
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The air in riverside villages and towns reeked with the sour odor of coal tar. Along the banks, streaks of black, shiny sludge seeped through the sand. Weeds on the riverbed had withered, their leaves stained with black spots.

Many Chinese cities choke on filthy air, but dirty water is the nation’s most pressing environmental problem. Most of China’s canals, rivers and lakes are severely tainted by pollution, and only about a third of the 3.7 billion tons of wastewater discharged by China’s huge cities each year is treated.

Officials say there have been 76 polluting incidents in the past eight months.
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The problem is compounded by the fact that many polluting industries have strong links to local governments, making officials reluctant to enforce environmental laws. Zhu Guangyao, deputy chief of the national environmental agency, said this month that local officials sometimes even work against Beijing-directed environmental protection efforts.
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