| Follow us on TWITTER: twitter.com Like us on FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com The life-giving waters and mineral deposits of the Xiang River in Hunan Province, were gifts from heaven. But now they threaten the very lives and the land of the local residents, there.. Huge tracks of land in Hunan, China's largest rice producer province, are fast becoming permanently unproductive lands, as the result of various forms of pollution. According to an insider, it's difficult to solve China's pollution problem due to the collaboration between officials and businesses. Hunan's "Mother River," it is now among China's most polluted bodies of water, due to the fact that mining and industrial facilities continue to illegally discharge their industrial waste and heavy metal pollutants directly into the river. Xiang's water, in turn contaminates the surrounding arable lands, making them permanently unproductive. This is exactly the case in Jiangshui Village, Jiangshui Town, in Yizhang County. Huang Yuanxun, a resident of Jiangshui Village said: "When the water beneath the mines, which carries heavy metals, flows onto the land, it"hardens" the soil making it unproductive. Crops don't grow well or they turn yellow and die." According to an insider whose village produces iron ore, water discharged from the mines has destroyed the surrounding croplands. Villagers were punished for appealing to the government. About 500-600 villagers are forced to work in the iron mines, because their lands no ... |
