Illegal discharge of industrial effluents by chemical plants in a coastal town in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, has contributed to the ecological collapse of the city’s offshore region and harmed the living conditions of local people, the Beijing Youth Daily observed on Wednesday.
Villagers in Yanweigang town, a coastal area about 80 kilometers from Lianyungang, have born the brunt of the industrial pollution that has been discharged secretly by 123 chemical plants at an industrial park in nearby Guanyun county.
People in the town have long been living amid strange odors emitted from the chemical plants. “We close windows and doors to keep out a smell like rotten vegetables,” according to a local resident surnamed Fan. “I have been suffering from a scratchy throat after breathing the contaminated air for a long time,” Fan added.
Tap water is yellow and only used to do laundry. Locals buy bottled water to drink. Besides the health risks, the economic impacts created by the pollution are being felt by local people.
“These plants discharge pollutants directly into the sea with underground pipelines linking the industrial park and the coastal area of the Yellow Sea, which causes ecological damage in the region,” said Chen Hua, a local environmentalist. Industrial discharges lead to the mass deaths of fish, forcing people to abandon livelihoods from fishing, according to Chen.
Officers at the local fishery enforcement agency dug out several such pipelines and damaged them last Wednesday, but the illegal activity of the factories has not been stopped. Without the underground pipelines, the polluters have turned their eyes to rivers in Guanyun county.
