Naomi Cookson
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Water Crisis
When benzene entered Harbin's water supply, government communication—and public trust—broke down
by Naomi Cookson
"I'm not worried about not having water for four days. But I am worried about the coming earthquake," a cabdriver in Harbin, Heilongjiang, told me on November 21, 2005 as I joined the crowds rushing to buy an adequate supply of bottled water. Earlier that day, the mother of a coworker had told me she'd heard through word of mouth that the provincial government was shutting down the city's water supply for four days. Though masses of people rushed to stores in search of bottled water, no PRC or international news service had reported the imminent water shutdown. State news agencies did, however, report that Harbin, which has an urban population of nearly 4 million, would suffer from an earthquake at any moment and urged residents to prepare accordingly. Soon we learned the truth: An explosion had occurred at a chemical plant in a neighboring province days earlier, and a large, toxic benzene slick was headed toward Harbin.
Word on the street
Living in Harbin and working for CET Academic Programs, which operates a Chinese-language immersion program at the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), I was particularly concerned about the water crisis because I was responsible for assisting university students in the program. After witnessing frenzied crowds empty the shelves of our campus supermarket, a group of students and I decided to go to Metro, a German hypermarket, to try to find any remaining bottles of mineral water. After we arrived at the store, our hopes dwindled; checkout lines trailed far down the store aisles as people bought boxes of water and crackers. Not a single bottle of mineral water was to be found. Only two or three bottles of expensive French carbonated water remained on the store shelves.
But we chuckled conspiratorially when we came upon a stack of Gatorade boxes in the center of the beverage aisle. Not recognizing the brand Gatorade as a beverage, Chinese customers had left those boxes untouched. That night I purchased 36 bottles of Gatorade, and students lugged about 72 more back to the dorm, ensuring a reliable supply of potable liquids. (In the end, CET evacuated students to its Beijing campus before we could use up much of our stockpile.)
The next morning, November 22, local officials announced that the city's water system would be shut down by noon that day for maintenance work. When we still had running water after noon, the local government issued another statement, explaining that the water would be turned off because a serious chemical spill upstream had "perhaps" made the city's water supplies unusable. Of course, even this statement was false.
Behind closed doors
As we soon discovered, on November 13 part of the state-owned Jilin Chemical Industrial Co. plant in the neighboring province of Jilin had exploded, releasing an estimated 100 tons of benzene and nitrobenzene—likely the largest benzene spill in the history of the chemical's production—into the Songhua River, about 235 miles upstream of Harbin. Scientists have long linked excessive exposure to benzene, a carcinogen, to blood diseases such as leukemia and anemia. Although state media immediately reported the explosion, which killed at least five people and forced 10,000 local residents to evacuate, the fact that serious water pollution was traveling downstream was not relayed to authorities in Heilongjiang or other relevant areas. As the gravity of the situation became clear, Jilin officials were forced, on November 19, to alert Harbin's government that an 80 km-long chemical slick was heading toward the city. What took place behind closed government doors from November 19 to 21 is uncertain. Though Harbin officials were preparing to shut down the city's water systems by November 21, they were clearly not prepared to explain why.
Harbin residents were not convinced that the government's story—that workers would be conducting routine system maintenance—was entirely true. It seemed highly unlikely that the city would choose to engage in a four-day maintenance project in the middle of Harbin's notoriously cold winter; it also seemed senseless to shut down the entire city's water supply for routine maintenance. Some people had heard rumors of a chemical spill, and there were whispers that the water supply was polluted with mercury, benzene, or some other chemical.
In addition to the impending water shutdown, news sources began reporting predictions of an earthquake in the area. Whether the earthquake warning was a cleverly timed distraction, an alternative way to get the public to stockpile water, or whether officials really had evidence of a potential earthquake, Harbin residents were convinced that their first priority should be earthquake preparation.
As part of their language and cultural immersion, each CET student lives with a Chinese HIT student. After the earthquake warning was issued, some of these Chinese roommates slept fully clothed—wearing shoes—just in case they needed to run outside to safety. Laptops were carefully wrapped in clothing and stored along with other valuables. The impending chemical pollution of their water supply became merely an annoyance, a frustrating detail in their daily lives. In the face of a seemingly imminent earthquake, many of these young adults did not realize that the benzene spill was an environmental disaster that could cause long-term health problems.
On November 25, some brave Chinese journalists reported that the city government had purposely withheld information about the chemical spill from the Harbin public.
On November 25, some brave Chinese journalists reported that the city government had purposely withheld information about the chemical spill from the Harbin public. Though local authorities likely decided to withhold the news because no one wanted to admit error or take the blame, the actual reasons remain open to speculation. According to the Chinese journalists, Harbin authorities issued a false statement because they were waiting for the central government to approve disclosure of the truth. Provincial officials claimed that they had notified central authorities but did not hear a response before the water systems were scheduled to be shut down. In the spirit of political caution, local authorities decided to lie to the public rather than reveal the truth without central-government consent. After the truth came out, the central government blamed local authorities in Jilin and Harbin for the inefficiency of the provincial decisionmaking process, and accepted the resignation of the State Environmental Protection Administration director. Inconsistencies between official public statements issued by the central government and those issued by local authorities emphasized what seemed to be a growing rift between the central and local authorities.
Lessons learned?
In China's reform era, the nation's economic and domestic affairs have grown increasingly exposed to global scrutiny. Perhaps since the 2003 outbreak of SARS, which the international community criticized China for initially covering up, the central government has increasingly emphasized accountability and transparency. On the third day that Harbin went without water, PRC Premier Wen Jiabao visited the city and publicly ordered Harbin's government to make the water safe, turn the water back on as soon as possible, and return the region to a state of normalcy.
Under pressure from the central government, Harbin's authorities felt they had no choice but to turn on the city's water system soon, which likely meant skipping some precautions to ensure that the water was safe. Local authorities restored running water to the city on November 27, though officials warned that citizens should wait longer to use the water so that contaminants could be flushed out. Unsurprisingly, citizens were initially reluctant to use the water. Local authorities also began an expensive campaign to install charcoal filtration systems and to sink more than 100 wells to access groundwater. To help remedy the situation, in January 2006 the central government allocated $3.3 billion to fund a clean-up of the Songhua River.
On November 24, around the same time the Songhua River's toxic slick reached Harbin, a portion of a chemical plant in the southwestern town of Dianjiang, Chongqing, exploded and released benzene into the local water source. Local authorities quickly reported the incident and immediately sent warnings of potential benzene pollution to areas downstream. In this case, authorities responded with an efficiency that reflected a lesson learned from Harbin.
Authorities elsewhere had also been paying attention. In December, a smelting plant in Shaoquan, Guangdong, spilled cadmium into a tributary of the Pearl River, which flows past Guangzhou and empties into the South China Sea near Hong Kong. Officials there also reacted and publicized the information fairly quickly.
The Harbin incident has shown that the Chinese public does not necessarily believe official news reports when environmental, public health, or other crises occur. Not only have the PRC government's actions become more exposed to international scrutiny, but the proliferation of advanced technology and widespread Internet access has loosened PRC officials' control over the domestic flow of information. The PRC government has, in turn, begun to feel more pressure from its citizenry for greater accountability. The PRC government does not yet appear to have fully learned from its mistakes and become more transparent and consistently accountable; there may yet be more incidents like the Songhua River cover up before the transformation is complete.
Naomi Cookson is resident director of the CET Academic Programs Chinese-language program in Harbin, Heilongjiang.
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