Anti-pollution officials don't dare dip in river
By Li Qian |
February 22, 2013, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
AFTER two Wenzhou environmental protection officials were challenged to swim in polluted rivers, the city agency didn't issue bathing caps and trunks but instead bought a full-page ad.
The city's environmental protection bureau bought the advertisement to publicize its achievements, a move widely criticized on the Internet.
The authority in the city in Zhejiang Province claimed to have improved the public satisfaction rate by 4.6 percent last year and to have been cited as a model agency by provincial authorities.
It also said it cleaned up 16 polluted rivers and strictly monitored 298 factories, according to the ad published on Tuesday's Wenzhou Evening News.
According to an online posting of the newspaper's ad rates, 140,000 yuan (US$22,442) is quoted for a full-page color ad placement. Neither the paper nor the authority confirmed the cost. Netizens called it a misuse of public money for boasting instead of using it to control pollution.
Wenzhou bloggers posted pictures of multicolored rivers that they said had been stained after unrestrained chemical discharges to refute what the authority claimed. Besides water in hues of blue and yellow, the rivers were crammed with trash, including in one case an overturned vehicle.
"I thought I was watching oil paintings at first, but I felt unable to continue (looking) when I saw a sea of rubbish," a netizen posted.
Over the weekend, Jin Zengmin, chairman of an eyeglasses company in Hangzhou, asked Bao Zhenming, director of the environmental protection bureau in his hometown of Rui'an, which is governed by Wenzhou, to swim in a local river for just 20 minutes. He promised a 200,000 yuan reward.
Jin claimed that shoe-manufacturing workshops along the river were discharging industrial waste directly into the river as well as toxic gas into the air. Jin also claimed that 17 of the 1,000 villagers died from cancer last year.
Bao admitted the pollution, but blamed household garbage rather than industrial waste. He denied that the workshops were linked to cancer. He vowed to build facilities to combat the pollution. Workers were sent to the scene to clear garbage, the Beijing Times reported.
On Tuesday, Su Zhongjie, Bao's counterpart in Cang'nan County in Wenzhou was also asked to swim in an oily and dirty river, with 300,000 yuan in reward money. The Longgang Town government in Cang'nan promised to thoroughly check nearby restaurants, which it blamed for the pollution.
The city's environmental protection bureau bought the advertisement to publicize its achievements, a move widely criticized on the Internet.
The authority in the city in Zhejiang Province claimed to have improved the public satisfaction rate by 4.6 percent last year and to have been cited as a model agency by provincial authorities.
It also said it cleaned up 16 polluted rivers and strictly monitored 298 factories, according to the ad published on Tuesday's Wenzhou Evening News.
According to an online posting of the newspaper's ad rates, 140,000 yuan (US$22,442) is quoted for a full-page color ad placement. Neither the paper nor the authority confirmed the cost. Netizens called it a misuse of public money for boasting instead of using it to control pollution.
Wenzhou bloggers posted pictures of multicolored rivers that they said had been stained after unrestrained chemical discharges to refute what the authority claimed. Besides water in hues of blue and yellow, the rivers were crammed with trash, including in one case an overturned vehicle.
"I thought I was watching oil paintings at first, but I felt unable to continue (looking) when I saw a sea of rubbish," a netizen posted.
Over the weekend, Jin Zengmin, chairman of an eyeglasses company in Hangzhou, asked Bao Zhenming, director of the environmental protection bureau in his hometown of Rui'an, which is governed by Wenzhou, to swim in a local river for just 20 minutes. He promised a 200,000 yuan reward.
Jin claimed that shoe-manufacturing workshops along the river were discharging industrial waste directly into the river as well as toxic gas into the air. Jin also claimed that 17 of the 1,000 villagers died from cancer last year.
Bao admitted the pollution, but blamed household garbage rather than industrial waste. He denied that the workshops were linked to cancer. He vowed to build facilities to combat the pollution. Workers were sent to the scene to clear garbage, the Beijing Times reported.
On Tuesday, Su Zhongjie, Bao's counterpart in Cang'nan County in Wenzhou was also asked to swim in an oily and dirty river, with 300,000 yuan in reward money. The Longgang Town government in Cang'nan promised to thoroughly check nearby restaurants, which it blamed for the pollution.
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