Plants pollute Hangzhou Bay secretly: report
By Xu Chi |
July 8, 2013, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
HUNDREDS of large factories along the coast of Hangzhou Bay have built underground pipelines to discharge pollutants directly into the water, China Central Television revealed on the weekend.
Fishermen told CCTV that fish populations have been decimated due to the heavy pollution and they are struggling to earn a living.
China's Environmental Protection Bureau last year found that more than 90 percent of the water in the bay is now at the country's worst quality level.
More than 200 chemical factories, including those in Shanghai Chemical Industry Park, are along the bay, an inlet of the East China Sea and surrounded by Shanghai and Zhejiang Province.
Fishermen living around the bay in Shanghai's Fengxian District told CCTV they only can catch some small fish now even after spending five hours in the morning out at sea.
The fish are too small and can only be used for fish feed, the fishermen were cited as saying.
"Many fishermen have quit their jobs as they can no longer catch big fish in the sea," a fishing village resident told CCTV.
"There was once a lot of fishing villages surrounding the bay, but now most of them are gone," he added.
The fishermen said they could catch at least 500 kilograms of fish in a single day when the water was not polluted by the factories. They added that they earn about one-third of what they did in the past.
In another fishing village, residents told CCTV their lives have changed after the fish have essentially disappeared due to the pollution.
An 84-year-old fisherman was cited as saying the village used to have 16 fishing boats and more than 280 fishermen. They could catch more than six tons of fish from the sea in one trip, the elderly man said.
Now the village doesn't have a single boat.
Black river
Along the south shore, CCTV showed a black river flowing into the bay. The river flows from an industrial park, home to printing and electroplating companies, in Yuyao City, Zhejiang.
"The wastewater has been discharged by the companies for several years. It killed almost all the fish in the river," a resident told CCTV.
"You cannot see the source of the pollution as the factories buried their sewage pipelines deep underground. They dump the sewage directly into the sea."
A journalist walked into the black river and dug under the sand and uncovered a sewage pipeline. Black water was seen flowing from the pipeline.
In the same area, the journalist discovered two more pipelines buried underground. Thus far it was not clear which factories were polluting Hangzhou Bay.
About 56 tons of polluted water was discharged last year into the sea nationwide, the 2012 China Environment Status Report said.
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