CHINA, NATIONAL, SOCIETY, REPORTING/COMMENTARY: The Clamor of the “Manganese Triangle”

By Li Mu

Shen Congwens's spectacles would drop if he could see what has become of Chatong.

These days, even locals feel detached from the town's legendary past as preserved in Shen's novel, Bianchen (border town). Like many other agriculture-dependent towns in the region, Chatong's role as Hunan's western river port and trade hub has dwindled over the last several decades. The Qingshui River, the border of Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, is no longer a major trade route. Worse still, it is not as clear and clean as before--and that could have been even worse if the state had not tightened environmental control for fear of further rural confrontations.

The tens of thousands of visitors who used to have a great time swimming in the river dare not now for fear of dermatitis and ulcers. In 2003 the river reportedly was the color of dark olivine and had an unpleasant smell. "You can write in it with a brush pen," people living by the river described it then.

It was confirmed that the river had been seriously contaminated by industrial waste including hexavalent chromium, a human carcinogen that can also cause heart and kidney dysfunction. The blackened water was the price of a booming mining industry profiteering on the "Manganese triangle" of Xiushan (Sichuan province), Songtao (Guizhou province) and Huayuan (Hunan province).

The triangle is estimated to have nearly ten million tons of manganese reserves, and has become China's largest manganese manufacturing hub. Since 2000, more than 20 electrolytic manganese plants--with annual production averaged at ten thousand tons--were founded in Songtao and Huayuan on the upper Qingshui River. Zinc sulfide flotation plants and hundreds of molybdenum plants were also in the area, dumping other mineral wastes into the Qingshui River.


Before any measures were taken to purify the river, illegal vanadium plants popped up at an astonishing rate early in 2004. These vanadium plants produced vanadium pentoxide using the state-banned sodium salt roasting process, during which toxic gas was emitted and mineral residues were dumped into the Qingshui River.

To the great loss of many dozens of fishermen, fish and water plants vanished. Some ten thousand people in 4 counties of the two provinces drank the water without knowledge of its serious contamination. Many of them became inflicted with renal calculus, gallstones, cancer or ulcers.



In Changxin village of Tuanjie, not far from Chatong, almost 90 percent of the villagers had gallstones, thanks allegedly to the nearby zinc sulfide flotation plants. The villagers there complained that they lost their source of water when the river flooded their well in summer. Liu Lanzhi, a farmer living by the river, said that his land produced only two thirds the amount of grain as before.

"Most rice fields near the river depend on its water. There has been a great loss in rice production. Many farmers stopped or reduced their production," one of the village heads said. It was estimated that at least 1500 Yuan worth of production was lost on each acre, among tens of thousands of acres of land depending on the river for irrigation.

"We have been raising proposals for tackling the problems since 2002, but see little improvement," a local official said.

Within the triangle, local governments in three provinces hold the mining industry as their economic lifelines. Huayuan bounced from being an economic back leg to the fastest-growing engine in the province, all with the help of a mining industrial growth that contributed 53.45% of 2004's whopping 20.9％GDP growth rate. "It had been a farming county," an unidentified official confided to reporters. "Since late 2002, Huayuan began to pursue high growth by encouraging the selling and rough processing of the minerals," he said.

Following the example of Huayuan, Songtao encouraged the founding of electrolytic manganese plants, and quickly gained nearly 40 million in yearly revenue, an enormous increase for the region, and was acknowledged as a great accomplishment for local government. Most of the owners of the plants were from Hunan province. "What is left of the mining resources here in Hunan province is not enough for them, while Guizhou province has a lot more," one of the insiders said.

"This is plunder! What will we do when all the minerals are gone?" one local official roared. "They care for nothing," he said. "Not even human lives, except for money. Some are riding on the shoulders of people to climb up."

A letter in the name of "People in contaminated areas" was sent to the central government in the hope of stopping the pollution. But little was done when an official from the State Environmental Protection Administration came for an investigation. The plants stopped processing at word of their impending troubles. Huayuan Country pressed the manganese plants to reach environmental standards by September, 2004, but the river continued to be polluted.

Village heads from over 40 villages formed a deputy group for saving the Qingshui River. On December 9th, 2004, more than 30 deputies gathered before the county government building in plea of a solution. "We waited till dark, but were given no answer," said one of the deputies. "The county magistrate didn't see us until we threatened to appeal to the provincial government." Several days later only four manganese plants in Huayuan and two in Songtao were shut down, while other plants continued dumping untreated waste.

Without a coordinated alliance against pollution, local government officials also found their hands constrained by the borders of the three provinces. "Neither side claims the pollution of Qingshui River as its own," a local official said. "Many problems are caused by the borders. You can walk around three provinces within the time of a cigarette. Plants could move."

With no effective measures seen on the part of government officials, the furious public rose to confront the polluters. On May 9, 2005, hundreds of farmers from three villages near Chatong destroyed over 200 molybdenum flotation plants in Maoer County, because these plants had polluted their only source of water. "We appealed to the county in face and over the telephone, but nothing was done," said one of the village heads.

An illegal vanadium plant in Songtao was also destroyed by furious villagers in Huayuan. The plant had caused much pollution in the bordering areas of Huayuan, but there had been no government intervention on either side.

In mid May, more than 40 members of the deputy group sent collective resignations to force the state into taking action on the pollution of Qingshui River. "When the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and their children are at stake," cried Hua Ruqi, a deputy of Aimen village, "“what do we have to fear?"

Urged by the public, the government of western Hunan was at the forefront of clamping down on the illegal vanadium plants causing the environmental destruction. By the end of June, western Hunan had shut down 31 vanadium plants, which could have brought in 210 million Yuan of yearly revenue, and put a ban on digging and transferring vanadium minerals across the border. "I would prefer an economic slowdown to environmental destruction," said Du Chongyan, governor of western Hunan prefecture.



It was not until August that the central government gave instructions on the clamor of the "manganese triangle." Local governments started a joint effort on environmental regulation under supervision of State Environmental Protection Administration in September. Some 184 million Yuan was spent on antipollution equipment and environmental restoration. By December, the official press reported that most of the 41 manganese plants had established waste water recycling systems and automatic pollution detectors, and that the governors of Songtao had promised not to give permits to any environmentally unfriendly projects near the upper stretch of the Qingshui River.

In Chatong, people can wash their clothes and fruit in a clearer Qingshui River. The content of manganese and other pollutants has reportedly reached the state's basic requirement.

"Hopefully I can get you some fish next summer," a fisherman said.

Chatong is the home town of Li Mu. The field reporting of this story was done by journalists Yang Ming and Tan Yunwen. The photographs are by Zhang Jin -- the editors.