While serious pollution has been widespread in China, incidents of chemical poisoning in two communities have attracted particular attention. Both communities have been awarded the title of “ecological model” by the Chinese state after supposedly passing strict scrutiny on their environmental sustainability.
In August, the news of lead poisoning broke about two villages in Fengxiang County of Shaanxi Province in northern China. Among the 731 children tested near the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Company, 615 showed excess lead, of whom 166 were diagnosed with medium- or high-level lead poisoning and required hospitalization.
Just eight days prior to the revelation of lead poisoning, Fengxiang County passed the provincial-level evaluation for an “ecological model” county. After the news of lead poisoning came out, the local government’s Web site removed the news about the county being named an ecological model, but the original Web page remains cached and visible on the Internet.
In March, a report revealed cancerous pollution in another ecological model community, Chaoyang Village of Hongxing Township in Jixi City, Heilongjiang Province. A mountain of trash lies near Chaoyang Village, a dumping site for untreated household and hospital waste from Jixi City since 1988. This is compounded by pollution from several major factories.
Slowly, fish ponds have become littered with dead fish, and fruit trees have stopped producing fruit. People suffer from foul air and poisonous water. Cancer has plagued the village, already claiming 25 lives from its total population of 3,720.
How did communities suffering serious pollution ever become models for ecological achievement? A report on Chaoyang Village simply said, “Those relevant authorities would certainly know.”
Accreditation of ecological models started in 1995 in China, and since then thousands of communities have been awarded the title by different levels of the administration. Over 30 criteria set by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) encompass economic, ecological, and social sustainability. Communities not only have to meet these initial criteria, but they also have to present workable plans for further ecological achievements.
“No village in China has become ecological at present,” said Mr. Jiang Gaoming, a renowned ecologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, regarding the “ecological model” title. To Jiang, “ecological” means abandoning industrial pollution and the harmful use of chemicals.
The ecological models program has often prioritized economic criteria. A survey of media reports on the topic betrays a clear tendency of local authorities in using the program to boost economic development. Communities deemed as ecological models can better attract government funding and tourists.
Jiang Gaoming criticized the emphasis on economic measures in the accreditation of ecological model communities. “Economic parameters or GDP have been used as the hard criteria, while environmental quality parameters are only there for show.”
Jiang revealed that in Fengxiang County, the smelting factory was courted by the county government as a money maker, and its tax of 123 million yuan (US$18 million) in 2008 made Fengxiang one of the top 10 richest counties in Shaanxi Province.
SEPA, the authority overseeing ecological models, has a weak capacity to enforce environmental programs. In her article “Great Leap Backward,” environmentalist Elizabeth Economy points out that SEPA’s innovative environmental programs have been either minimally funded or stunted by the local government.
Not only does SEPA lack personnel, but fines for pollution that SEPA can impose are so low that factories have no incentive to improve environmental measures. During 2001–2005, only 1.3 percent of China’s annual GDP went to environmental protection, and only half of that was used on legitimate projects. SEPA’s local bureaus are set under the party branch and the regional and local authorities, allowing environmental priorities to often be sidetracked by the desire for economic growth or corruption.
As for ecological models, Ms. Economy says that only 7 to 10 percent of China's more than 660 cities meet the initial criteria set by SEPA to receive the designation of an ecological model city.
Cover-ups and fake reporting in pollution cases are common in China. Widespread Melamine poisoning in dairy products was revealed last year, even though the authorities had promised 1,100 steps for inspections to ensure safe and reliable milk. Blue-green algae bloomed in China’s third largest freshwater lake, Lake Tai, in 2007, even though many polluting factories in the area had passed environmental inspections and the authorities claimed to have shut down all the polluting factories along the lake shore.
Common to both Fengxiang County and Chaoyang Village is a policy being established through the violence of the state, a widespread occurrence in China. In the case of Fengxiang County, villagers initially resisted the building of the polluting smelting factory in 2003; but the county authorities forced the villagers to move to make room for it.
In Chaoyang Village, residents failed to receive any response from the authorities after they repeatedly appealed for the closure of the polluting dump; when they tried to block the road to the waste dump, they were met by armed police, who dispersed them.
Hong Jiang, Ph.D., teaches geography at the University of Hawaii, specializing in the cultural geography of the environment, environmental politics, and resource use in China.
