Kremlin: Water Safe to Drink in Khabarovsk

KHABAROVSK, Russia – A Kremlin envoy assured residents of Khabarovsk Friday that it was safe to drink the city’s water despite a toxic slick from China slowly passing through the river that feeds their water supplies. But many people were doubtful, stocking up on cases of bottled water and making worried calls to a hot line.

The dreaded 110-mile-long slick entered the city limits Thursday, five weeks after the Chinese plant spewed 100 tons of benzene, nitrobenzene and other toxins into the Songhua River. The Nov. 13 accident shut off running water to the city of Harbin’s 3.8 million people for five days. The Songhua becomes the Amur in Russia.

In China, another toxic river spill, flowing toward China’s southern business capital of Guangzhou, has been stopped by a dam as the government rushed to protect water supplies to the city of 7 million people, a news report said Friday.

Authorities closed the Baishiyao Dam at the city of Yingde, about 60 miles north of Guangzhou, to trap the spill of cadmium flowing down the Bei River, the China Daily newspaper reported, citing local officials. The cadmium was dumped into the river by a smelter.

The twin disasters highlight the precarious state of China’s water supplies for industry and homes. Regulators say its major rivers are badly polluted and millions of people lack access to clean water.

The accidents are an embarrassment to President Hu Jintao’s government, which has promised to clean up environmental damage from China’s 25 years of breakneck economic growth.

Kamil Iskhakov, the representative of President Vladimir Putin in Russia’s Far East, toured a water plant and laboratory that is testing samples from the Amur.

"The water itself is of good quality. There is no contamination whatsoever. Everything is below the norm. Khabarovsk residents are drinking normal water," he said in comments televised on Russia’s national TV channels.

A regional official in charge of efforts to combat the Chinese spill, Vladimir Popov, even said that the tons of carbon filters used to cleanse the water of the chemicals meant that it was of better quality than usual.

But confusing official messages about the consequences of the chemicals have done little to reassure the city’s 580,000 residents.

A top regional environmental official said earlier it was unsafe to use tap water at all – a warning that many residents heeded by filling bathtubs and canisters with clean water and buying up cases of bottled water.

A hot line has been flooded with worried calls.

Irina Zakonnikova said her family stopped using tap water even though callers to the hot line were being assured that it was "absolutely safe" to wash and cook with it. Instead she has crammed her flat with bottles, pots and a filled bathtub.

Regional Gov. Viktor Ishayev, who has denounced China for holding back information, appealed for calm Thursday, reassuring residents that neither municipal drinking water nor the city’s central heating system will be turned off.

With water samples being taken regularly, emergency officials told AP that pollution levels were within the acceptable norms.

But Mikhail Finkel, a regional emergency official, said: "There’s a very unpleasant smell in the water pipes."

The benzene, nitrobenzene and other toxins, which extend for 110 miles, were expected to reach maximum concentration Friday.

Officials say the slick could pass by Sunday but experts warn the effects will be long-lasting, since benzene and nitrobenzene are settling on the river bottom or sticking to the ice.