In August of this year the tiny village of Madaokou in the western part of Shaanxi Province hit the headlines world wide, when angry residents protested against a local lead smelting company. They walked to the factory and forced their way in through the entrance. They were angry because blood tests showed that many young children had too high levels of lead in their blood as a result of waste discharges of the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Co.
When a Chinese newspaper first reported on the issue and state television followed suit, it created a domino effect in China. In other villages near lead smelters concerned parents started protesting as well. The government ordered the factory to close down and announced a plan to relocate the village, after which the plant could restart again. The local media and the major Chinese newspapers paid much attention to the matter, but foreign journalists at the time were banned from reporting in the village.
As I happened to be not too far away from Madaokou while on my journey along the Yellow River, I decided to take a look myself. I traveled to Xi’an and took a connecting bus to Baoji. There I hired a taxi for the rest of the day to travel to Madaokou Village in Fengxiang County. The lead smelting factory indeed has suspended their operations. The large chimneys of the Dong Ling Lead and Zinc Smelting Co. no longer discharge poisonous gases into the air. The nearby coal-fired power plant is still running.
Madaokou itself is located right next to the factory and adjacent to the field of the power plant. The village is remarkably well maintained compared to countless other villages in rural China I’ve visited the last couple of years. Many houses have a garden in front of the house and most of the buildings have a spacious courtyard. “Madaokou is a rich town,” one of the residents tells me as he is selecting vegetables in front of his house. “The main source of income here is the money brought in from migrant workers of this village,” he says.
Whether the village still exists next year remains to be seen. According to official media reports, all residents of the village will be relocated, but the locals themselves are not convinced yet. “It’s still a rumor. There is still no agreement on financial compensation, says one of them. “Here we all have a piece of land, what’s going to happen with it when we move? We need to be compensated. For every square meter of land here, we want the same square meter back.”
A few hundred meters away Mr. Miao invites us to his courtyard. He is very angry because his daughter has a high percentage of lead in her blood. “Tests show she’s less developed. It looks as if she’s retarded. The drugs that we received from the local government are not very effective. There are many words from the government to help us, but I’ve seen little action. “
For now the Dongling factory has indeed shut dow temporarily. “Yes, they don’t dare to resart again, while we’re still living here,” Miao said According to him the plant, which opened in 2004 was discharging toxic waste gases illegally at night.
In the late afternoon, when we’re in the bus heading back for Xi’an. I got a call from a local official, who wanted to know what I had been doing in the village. He got my number through one of the people to whom I talked to and have given my number to. Apparently this official followed us. He did a good job, since I didn’t notice him this time. I asked my assistant to talk to him to find out what he wanted. But instead of doing that, he just disconnected the call. It appeared to be an effective stategy. The official didn’t call me back.
In Diantou Village near Jiyuan in Henan province, they can relate to the problems in Madaokou. When local residents watched a television report on the lead poisioning case in Madaokou, they immediately knew they had a problem as well. Adjacent to their village the second largest lead smelter in the world is located. “We had our children tested immediately after we had seen the reports. The tests came back with worrying results” said Zhang Li standing in front of his house.
On a field next to the village six women are harvesting cabbage. “Winter is imminent, we want the vegetables off the field before snow and freezing temperatures arrive”, one of them says. In the distance chimneys of the local lead smelter Yugang can be seen. A two lane road is the only separation between the fields and the factory. “Yes, we know our cabbage is polluted, but we have to eat? We don’t have anything else.”
A family in the village meanwhile is cooking the cabbage in a large pan right on the street. “It’s for winter,” explains one woman. “The only vegetable we eat is cabbage.”
While strolling along the streets in the village, residents are happy to tell their views about the lead poisoning scandal. “Unlike other towns we got little attention from the media,” one of them complains. But while everyone is filled with anger, they know at the same time they have no means to change the situation. It’s the bitterness of China, where due to a lack of a fully independent rule of law-system many citizens still have few opportunities to take their own destiny into their hands. Everyone in this village realizes that the air they breath every day is highy toxic and the vegetables they’re eating are polluted, but leaving the village is not an option, because they have no money. “And, besides, where should we go?”, Mr. Miaou says.
In Diantou there are no environmental organizations that can help the residents. And where citizens in Madaokou may well be relocated, in Diantou they’re not very optimistisc about their future. “But what can we do?”
This forced kind of self-sacrifice is not unique to the people in Diantou or Madaoukou. During my travels through all over China it’s precisely this sad catch phrase that I hear time and time again: Yes, we know the situation we are in, is very bad, but what can we do? We can’t change it anyway.”
About me
I'm a Shanghai-based correspondent for Het Financieele Dagblad, the leading business newspaper in The Netherlands and De Tijd, its counterpart in Belgium.
Contact:
bertvandijk [at] gmail.com
A blog (in Dutch) about my work in China can be found here
This blog
A document of a journey across China for an upcoming book on China's water crisis.
Together with Dutch photographer Frans Schellekens I'm traveling along the Yellow River to document the social and economic impact of droughts, melting glaciers, pollution, urbanisation and report about the measures the Chinese government is taking to address these issues.
The book will be published next year.
I too have visited the smelter on several occasions and know the manager and others. I do feel a little sorry for the company since I believe that in most respects it is a very good and responsible private enterprise. As I understand it the state should have moved the local residents earlier. The fact is that all lead smelters will, however hard they try, have an environmental footprint in the neighbourhood. The good news is that lead, unlike some elements, is excreted from the body so that there should be no long-term damage to individuals.