Lanzhou Water Contamination

The city of Lanzhou, Gansu experienced a major water contamination event between 10-14 April 2014. During that period, unsafe levels of benzene were present in the city’s tap water.  The tap water contamination is being blamed on a leak from an oil pipe line operated by Lanzhou Petrochemical Company, a local affiliate of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). An estimate 2.4 million resident were affected by the leak, causing a rush on bottled water.

Lanzhou’s water is controlled by Veolia Water, a French-Chinese joint venture. Cooperation between the company and local government was effective in controlling and monitoring the outbreak, although Veolia only present the information about the contamination to the local government some 12 hours after the fact. Water service was restored 14 April and testing indicates tap water is safe for consumption with no reported major health  incidents.

However, the environmental incident is not without its victims. A group of residents were quick to file a lawsuit seeking civil damages, a public apology, and water quality data for the past year. The suit was struck down on 14 April by a local court indicating that the party bringing the suit did not have authority under the law. If the court had accepted the lawsuit, it would have been a major development in China’s environmental movement. Court’s rarely accept lawsuits from private individuals exposed to pollution.

The Chinese central government has spoken many times about taking a serious stance on pollution and corruption. Allowing private individuals to bring suit against pollution violators could allow quick gains in both areas as pollution and corruption often go hand-in-hand. Short-term strain from a flood of lawsuits would result in long-term benefits for China as a whole. Such an action would also require central and local governments to offer up state owned enterprises for sacrifice. It is this element, combined with the overall loss of control to a potentially destabilizing popular environmental movement that most likely stays reform. Beijing still likes to work through affiliated NGOs and more importantly the Ministry of Environmental Protection to tackle pollution. Given the long list of potential destabilizing groups in China could Beijing’s biggest fear be a green movement? It certainly would have a unifying, widespread, popular appeal not seen since the early days of the Communist Party. And a Chinese green movement would dig deep into cultural and historic precedents in China often used by the Communist Party for legitimacy, making such a movement double dangerous to party rule. The development of China’s green movement in relation to government environmental policy is a dynamic worth monitoring given the potential outcomes. Perhaps one day the east will be green.