the constant skeptic

Pollution slowly choking North China’s largest lake to
death
ANXIN, China, April 28 (AFP) Apr 28, 2006
When a slick of pollution in north China’s biggest
freshwater lake left fish farms decimated in early March,
locals and environmentalists were little surprised.
Large-scale fish deaths have occurred regularly since the
1980s as excessive amounts of untreated industrial waste
water and raw sewage, coupled with drought and constantly
falling water levels, have left Baiyangdian Lake in
northern China’s Hebei province choking for its life.

“When we were kids we used to drink the water straight
from the lake,” Liu Zhanbing, 41, a fish farmer who has
lived his entire life on the banks of the lake in
Dazhangzhuang village, told AFP.

“Now we can’t even cook with it. We have to use well water
for our drinking water.”

This year’s fish kill came after upstream reservoirs of
waste water in the Baoding city region, home to about 10
million people, emptied their putrid sludge into streams
and rivers that run into the lake, state media said.

The pollutants, full of phosphorous and nitrogen, sapped
the oxygen out of the blackish green water and when the
frozen lake thawed, farmers found their suffocated fish
floating to the top.

“Farmers who didn’t harvest their fish in October, lost
their entire crop,” Liu said. “They were hoping that the
fish would grow bigger over the winter and then they would
be able to get better prices this spring.”

Liu, like many other farmers on the marshy lake, turned to
fish farming after wild fish began dying out years ago. He
said he barely makes ends meet farming fish, mostly carp,
but there is no other work for him to do.

With environmental disasters on the rise and especially
following a huge toxic benzene spill on the Songhua river
in northeast China in November, the government has
repeatedly vowed to put an end to the environmental
degradation that has come with 25 years of unbridled
economic growth.

For Chinese environmentalists and academics who have long
called for more environmental protection, cleaning up
Baiyangdian Lake has now become a test of China’s
determination to avoid an environmental crisis and clean
up its act.

So far, the government response has been strong with 218
polluting tannery, paper making and other factories above
the lake shut down, while at least seven environmental
protection officials in towns and cities up stream have
been fired for allowing the waste water to be released
into the lake.

Upstream reservoirs which have hoarded natural run-off
water for irrigation and industrial purposes have been
ordered to share their water and open flood gates to help
dilute the pollution in the lake.