Anti-pollution protesters halt construction of copper plant
September 27, 2012 Category Environment, Pollution
Thousands of anti-pollution protesters in Shifang, Sichuan province, battled police in late June and succeeded in halting the construction of a CNY10.4 billion molybdenum-copper alloy plant by Shanghai-listed Sichuan Hongda. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowds after protesters lobbed bricks at government offices. Several protesters were arrested but later released. “The local government will definitely carry out supervision during the entire process of constructing the project. If the company fails in the environmental protection assessment, the local government would not allow it to go into production,” Xu Guangyong, Mayor of Shifang, told protesters. He later agreed to scrap the project. “Given the fact that some people are worried about the environmental impact and health hazards of the project and reacted fiercely, [we] have decided to stop construction on the plant and it will never be built in Shifang,” the city’s Communist Party Secretary, Li Chengjin, said in a statement. Ma Jun, Director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said the case showed the lack of public participation in environmental decision-making. “Heavy metal projects are always highly polluting. Of course the public has concerns about this,” he said. Greenpeace campaigner Ma Tianjie said a toxic arsenic compound contained in the plant’s solid waste posed a major health risk. Molybdenum, though not carcinogenic, can cause liver and kidney damage, and can also hamper bone development in children, while copper is extremely toxic to aquatic animals but less dangerous to people. “The public’s concerns were not unfounded, given the poor environmental record of the metal-smelting industry,” Ma said. Li Yanfang, Environmental Law Professor, says China’s environmental laws still have loopholes in terms of public consultation. As a result, environmental reviews sometimes fail to reflect the public’s true opinion about certain industrial projects. Shifang, with a population of around 430,000, is about 50 kilometers from Chengdu, the provincial capital. Nearly 6,000 people in Shifang lost their lives in the massive 2008 earthquake that hit Sichuan and neighboring areas.
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