Residents' feedback pinpoints the polluters

Volunteers keep a watchful eye on industrial emissions in a bid to cut danger to health

"See? It stopped. Now we can see the entire sky," Lu Lin, a 30-year-old volunteer, says excitedly as he points to nearby industrial chimneys. Four companions join him in a sigh of relief.

What is getting them excited is the suspension of operations at Yunnan Xianfeng Chemical Industry Co, a state-owned enterprise related to the coal industry in Xundian county, Yunnan province. Inspectors from the central government declared on Nov 23 that its polluting emissions were severe.

"The suspension of production should be credited to the central inspectors and the wide participation of the public," he says. "The fumes from the chimneys would spread out and cover half the county and part of the sky. The odor was bad and people coughed a lot."

Lu has kept note of emissions from the plant for more than six months, after seeing a news report. He and his teammates in a volunteer group called Good Air Protector have conducted field research in nearby communities to see the effect of the plant's discharges.

"A pond was severely polluted, and it's hard to breathe when they put out fumes morning and night," Lu says.

Some residents say they developed debilitating conditions in their lungs, which may be related to the fumes, he says. But the plant had continued to produce and discharge the fumes since 2014, despite requirements from the environmental protection bureaus at county, city and provincial levels, according to a statement from the central inspectors.

Villagers took a chance and reported to the inspectors - as many as 46 times in the first two weeks after the inspection began. The inspectors ordered the province to investigate.

Even then, the plant continued to pollute, but further reporting by the media and an ongoing stream of complaints from residents brought on the suspension, Lu says.

"Our research materials will be handed to the authorities if they need them during the investigation," he adds, noting that other volunteers exposed the pollution problem in social media, which put the case in the public spotlight.

"The central inspection and wide public participation have helped the villagers breathe better air," Lu says, adding that his group will continue to follow up on updates about the plant during the suspension.

The central inspections have attracted public attention to some 20,000 pollution cases in 16 provincial-level areas.

Zhang Yu, a 28-year-old woman who works in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, says some residents in her community complained to the central inspectors about emissions from a small restaurant whose fumes had stained the area near its chimney. The restaurant was shut down.

"I'm satisfied to see the changes after the reports - meaning that after we participated in monitoring, we were able to see the improvement," Zhang says.

(China Daily European Weekly 01/06/2017 page7)