UNLIKE most parents, Pan Xiaoxia dreads watching her 12-year-old start the new semester.

She fears for the health of her daughter whose class is just a few hundred meters from a lead smelting plant that was closed after 851 children fell ill with lead poisoning.

"I'm just a farmer. I cannot afford to transfer my child to another school," says Pan standing in front of the gate of the Wudaokou village school, in Changqing Township, Fengxiang County of Baoji City, Shaanxi Province. Her eyes are fixed on the chimney of the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Co.

"Kids need to go to school. And all parents want them to be safe. But there is not much we can do," she says.

Sun Yuping, of Sunjianantou Village, considered transferring her son, but attending a more distant school would have entailed extra charges for board and lodging or long hours of travel.

Parents of the children found to have excessive lead levels in their blood are anxiously waiting for an official decision on the case.

Director Wang Hai'ao, of the Baoji Environmental Protection Bureau, told Xinhua that a new assessment of the Dongling plant was underway, but the results would not be released for at least a week.

Wang doubts the accuracy of the most recent appraisal released on August 15, which concluded, based on samples of air, soil and water, that the factory's metal discharges met national standards.

"We found those samples were taken after the factory had some of its machines turned off for maintenance. That could blunt the reliability of the assessment," he said.

The local government has set up infirmaries in all 10 village primary schools and the junior high school in Changqing Township. Each school is to have one physician to take care of the students.

The children know by heart that the normal blood lead level for children is below 100 mg per liter and that they should consume more milk, dried vegetables, nuts and kelp to expel lead from the body.

High lead levels can harm nerve and reproductive systems, cause high blood pressure and anemia. In severe cases, it can lead to convulsions, coma and even death. It can lead to cognitive problems, slow development and mental retardation.

Of the 851 children aged 14 and under who were found to have excess lead levels, 174 were considered serious and needed hospitalization.

Ten teachers have been dispatched by the city government to four local hospitals to help the sick students keep up with their studies.

The Ministry of Health also dispatched experts to Fengxiang to help local medical workers treat the sick children. Children aged 14 and under in another six villages are also having their blood tested.

Wudaokou villager Liang Zhongxiao, 72, still has the yellow brochure distributed by the county authority on August 23, 2003, depicting the smelting plant as a "garden-like factory."

It says that the Dongling Group was among China's top 100 private companies in 2001 and that the plant would benefit local people.

"We were all cheated," says Liang, brandishing the brochure in anger. "Not only children but also adults were harmed."

His oldest son, Liang Keyu, worked as a casual laborer in the factory in 2007 and 2008. Blood tests showed the amount of lead in his blood was 537.5 mg per liter, much higher than the normal level for adults, 400 mg.

"Tests showed many workers had excess lead in their blood. In response to our complaints, the management provided free drugs," Liang Keyu says. Workers whose blood lead level exceeded 600 mg per liter were hospitalized.

Qi Jian, of Wudaokou, who had been working for the factory for five years was found to have a blood-lead level of 830 mg per liter in 2007. After medical treatment twice, it had dropped to 330 mg in May.

A worker surnamed Ma fears for the health of his son and his job. "If the factory was permanently closed I would be jobless," he says. His son, Ma Zuqi, had been in the Fengxiang County Hospital for a week after his blood lead level was tested at 374 mg per liter.

Despite doctors' assurances that the drugs were safe, Ma worries that his three-year-old might suffer harmful side effects.

With his home in the danger zone - 500 meters of the factory - Ma and another 580 families should have been relocated to somewhere safer before the company commenced production.

Only 156 families, however, have moved to new homes so far, while 425 families remained.

Villager Liang Linqiang, 46, says: "The government said in 2003 they would move us away by 2008. But they never mentioned that later and we saw no action either."

Several hundred villagers staged an angry protest on August 17, and the county government quickly mapped out four relocation options: a site 3 kilometers away, another 5 km away, the township, or Baoji City.

Under the plans, villagers could choose either new farmland or surrender their land for cash and grain from a government-sponsored cultivation company.

A mother staying with her nine-year-old son, Ma Shilong, in Fengxiang County Hospital, however, complains about the complicated decisions.

"Can relocation address our concerns once and for all? I don't know whether our drinking water and the soil have been polluted. Frankly, I don't want to leave my home, but on the other hand, I cannot leave my boy at risk of lead pollution," she says, declining to give her name.

The fear has spread fast. In the relatively distant Gaojutou and Luobosi villages, parents are demanding the factory be removed and their children receive free blood tests.

The county government is trying to defuse public anger. Sources with the smelting plant say that in the protest on August 17, villagers dismantled fences around a rail line reserved for the company, and smashed trucks and other vehicles.

The smelter, which produces zinc, lead and coke, accounted for 17 percent of Fengxiang County's GDP last year. It contributed 123 million yuan (US$18 million) in taxes and generated 24 million yuan, or one sixth, of the county government's total fiscal revenue.

(The authors are writers at Xinhua news agency.)