Haze of Confusion Over Most-Polluted City List
Date: 14-Sep-07
Country: CHINA
Tianjin, with more than 10 million people, gained unwelcome
global attention on Wednesday when the Blacksmith Institute in
New York named it as one of the world's most heavily polluted
places for its outpouring of toxins from scrap lead
processing.
"Tianjin has China's leading lead production bases,
contributing to lead poisoning and various disorders and
illnesses in children," said a photo caption on the institute's
Web site (www.blacksmithinstitute.org) showing the city's port
and rising skyline.
The Blacksmith announcement itself also referred to
"Tianjin in Anhui province" and noted that 140,000 people were
affected by the pollution.
The Blacksmith Institute issued an official correction on
Thursday saying Tianying in impoverished Anhui province, 750 km
(460 miles) south of Tianjin, is one of the world's top 10 most
polluted sites, not Tianjin.
Not that Tianjin was leaping to its own defense on
Thursday. Repeated phone calls to the city spokesman's office
went unanswered.
Despite the mixup, there is no doubt that toxic pollution
from China's industrial boom is taking a heavy toll on
citizens' health and lives.
About 460,000 Chinese die prematurely each year from
breathing dirty air and drinking polluted water, the World Bank
estimates.
Beset by public alarm about acrid air and toxic water,
China has promised to cut industrial pollutants by 10 percent
between 2006 and 2010. Last year it failed to meet the annual
target.
Tianjin certainly has its share of noxious emissions, and
Linfen in Shanxi province, which is also on the institute's
list, certainly boasts some of the nastiest air on the planet.
But Tianjin has very little lead processing, which remains
common in smaller sites across poorer, inland China.
Tianying, the smaller eastern town, claims to have cleaned
up its act and is promoting an environmentally clean industrial
park.
But a 2006 report by the official Xinhua news agency said
that Jieshou, the city that encompasses Tianying, continues to
process 160,000 tonnes of lead, mostly from used batteries,
every year -- half of total national production.
(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in New
York)
