Company reportedly reburied pollutants

A Gansu company that was punished last month for polluting the Tengger Desert by dumping untreated sludge and sewage failed to follow through with the cleanup task, according to a news report on Monday. Instead, the company covered up material it was supposed to remove.

Ronghua Industry & Trade Co in Wuwei, Gansu province, secretly discharged more than 83,000 metric tons of untreated sewage into a desert pit between May of last year and March, contaminating about 18 hectares east of the city, the Wuwei government said on March 21.

A cleanup was ordered, and most of the wastewater and mud was collected and transferred to sewage treatment plants. Some sludge and water was left in the bottom of a pit to be dealt with later, once research work at the site was completed, the city said.