Remedies not enough

The local government has finally taken action to address the pollution caused by cadmium from a chemical plant in the city of Liuyang in Central China's Hunan province. The action comes five years after it was first reported to the local environmental protection department and after a protest by thousands of local villagers last week.

The local government announced that the plant as the source of pollution will be closed, and its leader has been detained. Leaders of the local environmental protection department have also been dismissed from their positions. At the same time, the local government has arranged for the villagers to be medically examined, and experts have been invited to discuss efforts to restore the contaminated but arable land. Financial compensation to affected villagers, too, is in the pipeline.

Yet, all these hardly project an image of the local government as a responsible one. Had it not been for the protest, which blocked the gate of local township government seat and police station, and turned it into a scandal known throughout the country, local government would still be dragging its feet.