China River Town Shuts Down Water Supply

By JOE McDONALD

YILAN, China – Another town on a poisoned Chinese river shut down its water system Wednesday as a toxic slick caused by a chemical plant explosion arrived, and the country’s health minister warned that the spill was still a major problem.

Running water to about 26,000 people in Dalianhe, on the Songhua River in China’s northeast, was cut off at 6 p.m., said an employee of the government office of Yilan County, where Dalianhe is located.

“It will last three days,” said the employee, who would give only his surname, Gu.

The slick arrived a day after Harbin, a major city upstream, declared its tap water safe to drink again. Its 3.8 million people had endured five days without running water as the slick of benzene and other toxic chemicals passed.

Schools in Harbin reopened Wednesday and businesses that closed due to lack of water, such as bathhouses, reported a surge in customers.

But Health Minister Gao Qiang warned against complacency, saying the spill was still a “major problem.”

“This matter has alerted us to the need for perfect contingency plans and the effective implementation of those plans when faced with an emergency,” Gao said at a news conference in Beijing.

The toxins were spewed into the river by a Nov. 13 blast at a chemical plant in Jilin, a city further upriver from Harbin. The 50-mile-long slick is expected to reach the major Russian city of Khabarovsk within two weeks. The Songhua flows into the Heilong River, which becomes the Amur in Russia.

Oleg Mitvol, deputy chief of Russia’s Federal Natural Resources Service, said Wednesday in Moscow that the slick could reach Khabarovsk, a city of 600,000, in as soon as four days.

Residents of Khabarovsk have bought up bottled water in stores, leaving many shops with only carbonated water. They also are stocking up on water at home, filling bathtubs and any container they can find.

Dalianhe is on the outskirts of the Chinese city of Yilan, which was not affected because it relies on deep wells, said another county official who would give only his surname, Ma.

“Both the county government and residents have stored enough water for at least five days,” Ma said. “The county government has dug five wells to provide water for the residents and will be sending tanker trucks to distribute water.”

A local TV station repeatedly broadcast phone numbers for families to call in emergencies and a promise to “safeguard market and social stability” – a warning to merchants not to raise prices for bottled water.

Yilan closed riverfront parks to keep the public away from the poison-laced water. The city lies at the intersection of the Songhua and Mudan rivers, a famous scenic spot.

The spill was an embarrassment for President Hu Jintao, who has demanded greater government accountability in the face of corruption and recurrent public health scares such as bird flu.

Communist leaders are eager to show that although they failed to prevent the spill, they can organize the resources needed to get the public through the aftermath.

While Russian environmental officials have told the population not to panic, the World Wide Fund for Nature said the river faced “ecological catastrophe.”

Experts say the damage is likely to be long-lasting, but the full effects will not be known at least until next year with the thaw of river ice believed to contain benzene.

“The benzene will remain in the ice until spring, and the (situation) will be dragged out,” said Ilya Mitasov, a Moscow-based spokesman for the World Wide Fund for Nature.

The river could take 10 years or more to flush out pollutants absorbed by mud and microorganisms, according to a Chinese expert, Zhang Qingxiang, of the Environmental Studies Department at Shanghai’s East China University of Science and Technology.

Farmers living downriver from Harbin said they had yet to feel any effects from the benzene, a solvent and gasoline additive that is usually colorless and slightly sweet-smelling. Benzene is used in the manufacture of plastics, detergents and pesticides.

Yu Welong, standing beside his farmhouse near the frozen riverbank, said he did not see or smell anything unusual as the chemicals flowed by last week. His family and their 150 ducks, chickens and geese use water from deep wells, he said.

“They’re all fit as fiddles,” said Yu, the freezing wind shaking the flaps of his fur hat as he gestured at the birds picking through a field of corn stalks. “There has been absolutely no effect.”

But he was uncertain about the coming spring, when he will plant corn, potatoes and soybeans.

“We’re not scientists, so we just don’t know what might happen,” he said. “If the river floods its banks, there could be contamination of the soil and that would be bad for us.”

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Associated Press reporters Audra Ang in Beijing, Christopher Bodeen in Harbin and Burt Herman in Khabarovsk contributed to this report.