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Black River - China
June 1996 The River Huai, like many rivers in China, can no longer supply local agriculture with its lifeblood - water. A lethal chemical cocktail has left white, effervescent foam bubbling along its surface. But the determination of central government to clean up the black, polluted river by the year 2000 meets with resistance. Local government is torn between a clean river or environmental checks on economic development. Paper factories supporting 20,000 people profit by disposing sludgy pollutants in the river. Hard access footage reveals that even a 'model' factory hoses frothy, evil smelling water into the Huai. A fisherman on a nearby house boat has not caught a fish in ten years. He dissolves aluminium compounds in a bucket of river water just to purify it for household chores. In the city of Bengbu a restaurateur keeps his customers happy by rinsing his vegetables in bottled mineral water. Secret interviews show that local people believe it will be impossible to clean the river up by 2000.
Channel: News & Politics
Author: journeymanpictures
Length: 12:25
Rating: 4.67
Views: 4161
Tags: agriculture China dirty environment goverment Huai Pollution River water
Video Comments
MTB710 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)I've heard about this as well. I live in the Greater Los Angeles area, but not far the the Rio Nuevo/New River, and apparently they've set up treatment plants in both Calexico (on the US side) and in Mexicali (in Mexico), where the raw untreated sewage was coming from in the first place. It's not entirely cleaned up yet, but it is progressing. Also, I myself live only a few miles from the Santa Ana River and the treatment plant you speak of. I never swim in it, but I do see people fishing in it.
Han08Seokkyu (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)
even if chinks drink this shit water, they will be fine.chinks are monsters.
greenwish4 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)
The way taht china is treating their country is absolutely horrifying
stixnskins666 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)
everythings made in china
LongWolfClub (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)
china should be a farming country not a industrial country
johnknoefler (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)
hey zebra mussels are fine for cleaning organic waste but what of toxic chemicals? I don't think so.
johnknoefler (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)
and people get angry and say USA is more poluted than China. I have been all over USA and the only thing as filthy as what I see here is Rio Nuevo flowing out of Mexico into southern California and all the way to the Salton Sea. In Riverside California the raw sewage is so clean after processing people swim in it and never suspect it is 100% sewage outflow since historically Santa Ana River would dry up in the summer heat. Now it flows year round.
thegameoflife2 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)
China is poisoning its own people and land just the way other countries did during the rise of industrialism, It is a tragedy for the Chinese people that their country is unwilling to learn from the industrial history of more-industrialized nations.
thegameoflife2 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)
Even though initial capital cost of silicon tetrachloride recycling facilities is high the operating costs are also high, I believe that it would be wrong to think that funds aren't available in China to implement this waste processing technology, it is simply a question of priorities (and greed). In fact, some Chinese are becoming extraordinarily wealthy from polysilicon companies
thegameoflife2 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)
China has secured its position as one of the largest solar panel manufacturers in the world.The result of all these new polysilicon plants in China, in addition to supplying the growing worldwide need for solar panels, is a set of serious environmental problems, mainly for poor Chinese villagers who populate the rural areas where Chinese chemical plants spring up.