After 7-year battle, a village enjoys its fruits
Source: Xinhua |
March 27, 2013, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
AFTER seven years, Wo Yafei will finally be able to enjoy the fresh bayberries she had planted on a hill near her village, thanks to the closure of an iron plant which had polluted the local environment.
"We used to eat the bayberries after plucking them straight from the trees without washing. But after the factory was built in 2004, people were worried about the fruit could be polluted and did not touch them. Most of the fruits rotted on the trees," the 51-year-old woman from Housuo Village in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, said.
"The air smelt strange and a thick layer of black dust would fall on the windowsill if the windows were kept open for a long time," she added.
Water in the local river was also contaminated.
Several months after Huaguang Stainless Steel Co Ltd started production, the villagers asked the managers to solve the pollution problem. They were instead beaten up by the workers.
The protesters then decided to seal off the road to the plant but it did not help either.
The government of Beilun District, where the village is located, ordered the company on several occasions to overhaul its waste treatment system and meet the environmental standards, which was ignored by the company.
But it was eventually shut down last year after the villagers protested in Hangzhou, the seat of the provincial capital.
"We can resume our comfortable life now," Wo said.
Wo's story illustrates the increasing awareness of environmental issues among the citizens.
Beilun, which neighbors the East China Sea, has a large port and a lot of heavy polluting industries. After years of development that led to heavy consumption of energy and emission of pollutants, the district is now trying to achieve both industrial development and ecological progress.
"We should use our iron fists to deal with polluting projects, even at the cost of losing an industrial plant worth 3 billion yuan (US$477 million) and shut down the technologically backward plants," said Hua Wei, head of the Beilun District government.
In recent years, the district has closed more than 10 medium and large companies and 62 small factories, and spent nearly 10 billion yuan on handling industrial waste.
"The air quality in Beilun is the best this year since monitoring began seven years ago," said Zhang Hongfeng, deputy director of the Beilun District Environmental Protection Bureau.
"We used to eat the bayberries after plucking them straight from the trees without washing. But after the factory was built in 2004, people were worried about the fruit could be polluted and did not touch them. Most of the fruits rotted on the trees," the 51-year-old woman from Housuo Village in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, said.
"The air smelt strange and a thick layer of black dust would fall on the windowsill if the windows were kept open for a long time," she added.
Water in the local river was also contaminated.
Several months after Huaguang Stainless Steel Co Ltd started production, the villagers asked the managers to solve the pollution problem. They were instead beaten up by the workers.
The protesters then decided to seal off the road to the plant but it did not help either.
The government of Beilun District, where the village is located, ordered the company on several occasions to overhaul its waste treatment system and meet the environmental standards, which was ignored by the company.
But it was eventually shut down last year after the villagers protested in Hangzhou, the seat of the provincial capital.
"We can resume our comfortable life now," Wo said.
Wo's story illustrates the increasing awareness of environmental issues among the citizens.
Beilun, which neighbors the East China Sea, has a large port and a lot of heavy polluting industries. After years of development that led to heavy consumption of energy and emission of pollutants, the district is now trying to achieve both industrial development and ecological progress.
"We should use our iron fists to deal with polluting projects, even at the cost of losing an industrial plant worth 3 billion yuan (US$477 million) and shut down the technologically backward plants," said Hua Wei, head of the Beilun District government.
In recent years, the district has closed more than 10 medium and large companies and 62 small factories, and spent nearly 10 billion yuan on handling industrial waste.
"The air quality in Beilun is the best this year since monitoring began seven years ago," said Zhang Hongfeng, deputy director of the Beilun District Environmental Protection Bureau.
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