Posted 3/4/2011

CHINA IS CREATING DEATH BY WATER

The World Health Organization has officially stated that 100,000 Chinese die prematurely each year due to water pollution.

But that figure is way off because the Communist Party's total emphasis is on growth – not health. The threats to the people's health and longevity increase as spending and investment continue to ignore the environment in favor of economic growth.

Consider the following facts about water pollution in China:

• More than 500 million people drink water heavily polluted by human, animal and industrial waste.
• Major industrial polluters are manufacturers of chemicals, drugs, fertilizer, leather and paper. These and others routinely dump waste materials into rivers, lakes and the Pacific Ocean – where waste often travels to South Korea and Japan.
• As a result, more than 77 percent of river water is unfit for human consumption.
• In 2008, a giant t-shirt maker in Guangdong Province turned a huge lake red by dumping 27 tons of untreated dyes and other chemicals into the water each day. Closed down by protests, the factory simply moved further inland.
• One river has turned black with yellow foam trails, caused by mines discharging magnesium and chromium.
• Giant fish kills caused by water pollution now spread hunger by depriving the poor of their only source of protein. Fishermen have lost employment as pollution has destroyed their fish farms.
• Over 33 percent of industrial wastewater and more than 90 percent of human wastewater is dumped directly into rivers and lakes without being treated.
• More than 78 percent of the cities have no sewage treatment facilities – and no plans to build any.
• New water treatment facilities are overwhelmed by rapidly expanding manufacturers who dump their excesses directly into waterways.
• Groundwater under China's cities has become heavily polluted. Contaminated drinking water has been found three hundred meters below the surface.
• Millions of miles of agricultural lands have been contaminated by heavy metal pollution.
• The government recently admitted that 12 million tons of rice have been contaminated by cadmium, which causes cancer.

Visitors from Europe and the USA have no idea of the seriousness of water pollution in China. The Party is careful to ensure that tourists see only the pristine parts of a few cities. (The Yangtze is an exception, since tourists see the ugly, brown, garbage-strewn river on their way to Three Gorges Dam.)

As a tourist, you will not be allowed to visit any of China's "Cancer Villages," where people are being killed off by abnormal levels of esophageal, gastro-intestinal and liver cancers. Heavy metal pollution also attacks the nervous system, causing workers to lose control of their hands and feet before dying early.

Instead, you will be encouraged to visit Guilin, with its blue skies and bluer Li River. But there are only four other cities with comparably clean water. The other 280 cities suffer poor to terrible water quality. (Luxury hotels in Beijing and Shanghai offer clean water.)

Extreme water pollution added to extreme air pollution produces a lethal mix.

More than a million Chinese die prematurely each year. More than five percent of infants are born with defects.

The one-child policy has resulted in the widespread infanticide of first-born females in rural areas.

In the cities, pregnant women seek sonograms to determine the sex of the fetus. A female fetus showing signs of defects has almost no chance of being born.

What is the government's solution to water pollution?

The Party is trying to ban sonograms.

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