Lead poisoning haunts Chinese smelter communities

Lucy Hornby, Reuters 24 Aug 09;

FENGXIAN, China (Reuters) - Chinese provinces have begun shutting lead smelters for environmental checks, after hundreds of children tested for high levels of lead in two separate cases this month.

At least three lead smelters in Henan province and two in Shaanxi province, with a combined capacity of about 6 percent of China's annual production, were ordered to temporarily halt operations in recent days, officials said.

The closures came after parents protested at a lead and zinc smelter operated by Dongling Group in Changqing, Shaanxi Province, and at a manganese smelter in Hunan this month.

China's pollution and lax product safety standards have long been a source of tension and unrest, particularly when residents of pollution hotspots -- dubbed "cancer villages" because of high disease rates -- feel they are being ignored.

Lead poisoning is endemic among villages near Chinese smelters, interviews conducted this weekend showed.

In Shaanxi's Fengxian, where smoke billows from a Dongling Group zinc smelter, two wan and listless toddlers tested with high levels of lead in their blood earlier this year. Villagers requested but did not get testing for 30 other children.

"These problems are really common actually. It's just that the Dongling case in Changqing got some attention," said a villager surnamed Tu. Older villagers developed circulatory problems and some workers at the plant got too sick to work.

"This environmental pollution is not unique to Fengxian. It's all over."

Lead poisoning due to air and water pollution from poorly regulated smelters and mines haunts the valleys of the ore-rich Qinling range, in a poor and remote part of China.

The problem dogs heavy metals bases in Hunan, Henan, Yunnan and Guangdong provinces. Closing polluting plants has pushed the industry to poorer areas where any investment is welcome.

The shift to poorer regions echoes the migration of the lead smelting industry to China over the last decade, as stricter environmental laws forced smelters in richer countries to close.

China's output of refined lead rose nearly 20 percent in 2008 to 3.26 million metric tons. Output feeds the Chinese battery industry, the world's largest, which then exports worldwide.

CONTAMINATED

The casualties of China's heavy metals industry only get attention when officials respond to cases too large to ignore.

In late 2005, two of China's largest zinc smelters shut temporarily after cadmium contaminated the Pearl River Delta and the Xiang River, sources of drinking water for millions in Hunan and Guangdong Provinces. Cadmium hurts kidney and lung function.

Elevated cadmium levels also showed up in tests of children near the Dongling Group's lead and zinc smelter in Changqing.

Children are most vulnerable to lead poisoning because they are still developing, but smelter workers also fall sick because they absorb it through their skin. Ingestion of large amounts of lead may result in anemia, muscle weakness and brain damage.

"My dad couldn't stand it any more, so he quit working. It got so he could only work 20 days at a time, then he would have to stop," said a young woman surnamed Zhang.

"Dad's tummy would always hurt. When it's bad, he doesn't want to eat and has no energy."

Zhang's husband now works at a different smelter after her family's employer, Shaanxi Nonferrous Metals Holding, halted work at its 50,000 ton Wenjiangsi lead smelter earlier this month.

Workers at the Wenjiangsi plant said the plant's internal clinic regularly treats workers who get to the point that they cannot work. They resume work when they feel better.

"It's not a problem if you drink a lot of alcohol," said a young man in a blue work uniform.

(Additional reporting by Polly Yam in Hong Kong; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Q+A: China's pressing pollution problem
Reuters 24 Aug 09;

BEIJING (Reuters) - Over the last month, China has reported two cases of large-scale lead poisoning among children living close to heavily polluting factories.

Here are some questions and answers about pollution problems in China, the world's most populous nation:

HOW BAD IS POLLUTION IN CHINA?

For decades, there were few fetters on the waste that factories, plants and power stations in China pumped into the air and water. Parts of the countryside have been blighted by pollution, which has become widespread following the rapid growth that has made China the world's third-largest economy.

Over the past decade, Beijing has strengthened efforts to limit pollution, punishing and shutting down some offenders. But growth is still a priority, especially for local governments, and environmental protection officials have relatively little sway.

In 2008, 45 percent of key river and waterway sections monitored by the Ministry of Environmental Protection were classified as polluted to such an extent they were unsuitable for human contact and in some cases even for irrigation.

Of 113 key cities under air quality monitoring, 58 percent reported an average of good or excellent air quality in 2008, an improvement of 13 percentage points compared to previous years.

But some experts have said those numbers reflect official manipulation and do not reflect the real level of air pollution.

The World Bank has previously estimated that of the world's 30 most polluted cities, 20 are in China.

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES?

The most immediate consequence is health problems. Areas badly hit by pollution often report higher-than-normal levels of cancers, respiratory diseases, diarrhea and other illnesses.

Two years ago, the World Bank estimated that 460,000 Chinese died prematurely every year from breathing polluted air and drinking or washing in dirty water.

Pollution also restricts the country's scare supplies of water suitable for drinking, and it can dent crop yields.

All of this adds up to economic costs that at least partly offset gains from fast growth. The World Bank estimated in 2007 that the health and other consequences of outdoor air and water pollution cost China's economy around $100 billion a year, equal to about 5.8 percent of the nation's GDP.

WHAT DOES THE CHINESE PUBLIC THINK?

Many Chinese long saw pollution as an unavoidable cost of economic growth. But in recent years, growing public awareness, accompanied by greater official and media attention to the problem, has stoked rising complaints about toxic air and water.

Officials say protests over the problem have been growing, especially in the countryside, where farmers' crops and water supplies can be spoiled by filthy waste from industry.

Pan Yue, the deputy chief of the national environment watchdog, has said that in 2005 alone there was a 29 percent rise in the number of "mass incidents" -- an official term for protests -- over pollution and other environmental problems.

In cities, residents have also become more vocal about pollution worries, sometimes launching protests and petitions against proposed industrial developments.

In 2007, residents of Xiamen, a coastal city in Fujian province, held large demonstrations against a proposed chemical plan. The Xiamen city government later dropped the project, and there have been similar citizen mobilizations in other cities.

WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENT DOING?

The government says it is committed to greener growth. The current five-year development plan, which runs through 2010, has set a goal of cutting sulfur dioxide emissions and a key water pollution indicator, COD, by 10 percent compared to 2005 levels.

China's environmental protection watchdog was raised to ministry-level last year, giving it more power.

But officials are still under government and public pressure to keep up economic growth and job creation, and so local governments can turn a blind eye to polluters.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN NEXT?

Contention over environmental issues is likely to flare from time to time. The government is trying to clean up growth, but public expectations are also rising. That could stoke greater public opposition to industrial plants, nuclear power stations and other proposed developments.

But those rising public expectations must compete with a belief that economic growth and jobs remain paramount -- and the government is most unlikely to sacrifice that priority.

(Sources: Reuters; Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection; Woodrow Wilson International Center China Environment Forum www.wilsoncenter.org; World Bank, "Cost of Pollution in China")

(Reporting by Chris Buckley, Ben Blanchard and Liu Zhen, Editing by Dean Yates)

More provinces join China lead checks
Nick Trevethan and Polly Yam, Reuters 25 Aug 09;

SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) - The impact of a Chinese lead poisoning scandal spread to another two provinces on Tuesday, threatening further cuts in supply from the world's top producer of the metal.

Hunan, the second-biggest producer of refined lead among China's provinces, and Guangxi, which ranks number five, are checking smelters after protests by parents at a lead and zinc smelter operated by Dongling Group in Changqing, Shaanxi Province, and at a manganese smelter in Hunan earlier this month.

China's pollution and lax product safety standards have long been a source of tension and unrest, particularly when residents of pollution hotspots -- dubbed "cancer villages" because of high disease rates -- feel they are being ignored.

"The result of the checks will come in another few days," a smelter official in Hunan said, adding that possible closures of lead smelters would depend on the findings.

Henan province has already shut as much as 240,000 tons of annual lead smelting capacity, equivalent to around 6 percent of China's total, sending prices of the heavy metal used to make automotive batteries soaring 8.7 percent on the international market on Monday.

Analysts said the market would continue to be underpinned by the threat to supply, but investors were reluctant to drive prices, which have doubled from $999 at the start of the year, too much higher.

"This is a major supply issue for the market in the short term," Mark Pervan, senior commodities analyst at ANZ, said.

"But prices are already very inflated and investors will be uncomfortable pricing in more upside on this supply adjustment, but it will put a floor under lead."

Ingestion of large amounts of lead may result in anemia, muscle weakness and brain damage.

China, which supplies more than a third of the world's refined lead output, updated its industry standards about 2 years ago. But analysts from state-owned research group Antaike have said as much as 60 percent of the nation's capacity does not comply with the latest standards.

Hunan has more than 600,000 tons of lead smelting capacity, including the 100,000 tons of capacity owned by Zhuzhou Smelter.

In Guangxi around 80,000 tons of capacity has been shut of the more than 200,000 tons across the province.

MORE IMPORTS POSSIBLE

China, which has seen huge growth in automobile production, is likely to have to go to the international market to replace the 20,000 tons of monthly output that has shut.

It imported 11,500 tons of refined lead in July, and that could rise sharply as the closures start to bite.

"The lead market is one of the most finely balanced. The surplus in the first half was around 37,000 tons and before this, I was expecting a surplus of 20,000 tons next year," David Moore, an analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said.

"If supply is impaired for a sustained period of time it will become quite serious. (China's) lead consumption rose 25 percent in the first-half versus last year and given the trends in auto production it is probable that a large proportion will have gone to end demand."

As long as the closure edicts stem from provincial authorities and not Beijing, analysts and traders expect them to be fairly brief.

"The central government is not asking us to close. It is the local government's decision," a source at one of the closed smelters said. "The closure should last for two months at the most. If longer, who is going to contribute to the GDP?"

If more cases of poisoning turn up, Beijing may step in and impose stricter controls, Lan Ke, analyst at Southwest Securities in Beijing said, but for now it would be left to the provincial governments.

That view was also echoed by ANZ's Pervan who said the market was unlikely to see anything similar to the lengthy outage at the Magellan lead mine in Western Australia, which was shut for around two years ago when the port of Esperance banned lead shipments over environmental health concerns.

The mine, owned by Canadian-listed Ivernia is starting shipment of stockpiled concentrate and will re-open the mine next year.

"The Chinese will try and address this a little more quickly than the Australians did at Magellan where they had to reconstruct transport infrastructure.

"There will be pressure to get these plants cleaned up quickly and bring them back on line.

(Editing by Michael Urquhart)

Q+A: How does lead harm health and what can be done?
Reuters 25 Aug 09;

(Reuters) - China has begun shutting down lead smelters for environmental checks after hundreds of children tested for high levels of lead in two separate cases this month. Below are some facts on lead and its impact on human health:

HOW DOES IT HARM HUMAN HEALTH?

Lead is a metal with no known biological benefit to humans. Too much can damage various systems of the body including the nervous and reproductive systems and the kidneys, and it can cause high blood pressure and anemia.

Lead accumulates in the bones and lead poisoning may be diagnosed from a blue line around the gums. Lead is especially harmful to the developing brains of fetuses and young children and to pregnant women.

Lead interferes with the metabolism of calcium and Vitamin D. High blood lead levels in children can cause consequences which may be irreversible including learning disabilities, behavior problems and mental retardation. At very high levels, lead can cause convulsions, coma and death.

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

- Even a blood level of 10 micrograms per deciliter can have harmful effects on children's learning and behavior.

- About 250,000 children in the United States aged five and below have blood lead levels that are higher than that limit.

HOW ARE PEOPLE EXPOSED TO LEAD?

- People are exposed to lead through the air they breathe, water and food. People can be exposed to lead from motor vehicle exhaust of leaded gasoline, industrial sources such as smelters and lead manufacturing and recycling industries, from cottage industry uses and contaminated landfills.

Lead from natural sources is present in tap water to some extent, but analysis of both surface and ground water suggests that lead concentration is fairly low.

Other sources include use of ceramics (containing lead) for cooking, eating or drinking. In some countries, people are exposed to lead after eating food products from cans that contain lead solder in the seams.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

- Remove lead from petrol/gasoline, paint and plumbing

- If lead pipes cannot be removed, cold water should be flushed through in the morning before drinking

- Surveillance of potentially exposed population groups

- Water treatment

- Removing lead solder from food cans

- Use lead-free paint in homes

- Screen children for blood lead levels over acceptable limits and referral for medical care if necessary

- The World Health Organization says anything over 0.1 milligrams of lead per liter of drinking water is unsafe. If high levels are detected, alternative supplies or bottled water maybe necessary to protect young children.

Sources: World Health Organization, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn)