Tuesday, June 02, 2009
A sentence that sends three company executives to prison in China for contaminating a lake with arsenic-laced waste shows the country is taking industrial pollution seriously.
According to the Xinhua news agency, the exectuives belonged to the Chengjiang Jinye Industry and Trade Co. They will be spending 3 to 4 years in prison besides paying the fine for 16 million yuan (2.84 million dollars).
The company was dumping arsenic wastes into a lake located in the southwest region of China since 2001. They were also expanding their fertilizer plant without approval as informed on Tuesday.
Many drinking water sources were contaminated by water pollution from industrial wastes and had to be cut off from consumption. For companies, it is ofter cheaper to pay for the fines imposed to them than to clean their wastes.
Alex Wang, director of the National Resources Defense Counsel in Beijing, declared to be "good that they pursued this case, but the better approach would be to take preventive action."
The Chengjiang Jinye Co. was closed in September after the Yangzonghai lake was found heavily contaminated by arsenic wastes. This particular lake serves as water source for 26,000 people in the city of Yuxi in the province of Yunnan.
To March of 2009, the arsenic level of the lake was lowered from 0.128 mg per litre to 0.111 mg per litre. However, it will take over three years and 4 billion yuan to reduce the asenic level to below 0.05 mg per litre (which is the safe level).
Sumber : http://www.ubalert.com/alert/5833/updates
