Besides "border towns", what else is left of mining in western Hunan?

The legacy of mining in western Hunan: In addition to the "border towns", there are also children with lead poisoning here.

△Hunan Huayuan County, a slogan next to the mineral processing plant

The border town of Chadong is located in a corner of western Hunan. In the novel "Border Town", Shen Congwen described the unique customs and customs here. Today This is a famous tourist attraction in Hunan.

Located in Huayuan County, several towns around Biancheng Town are famous for their rich reserves of non-ferrous metals. More than 20 kinds of minerals have been proven in Huayuan, among which the reserves of manganese ore and lead-zinc ore rank second and third respectively in my country. Mining-related output value once accounted for more than 90% of the county's total industrial output value.

Under tourism mode, border towns maintain a relatively natural and primitive state. However, towns rich in mineral resources such as Maoer Township and Tuanjie Town have embarked on another path driven by resource development, and the local economy has developed by leaps and bounds. But behind the high industrial output value is the constant intrusion of pollution and damage during the development process.

On the surface, these towns are no different from border towns: wooden Miao buildings, rice fields where fish and ducks play, and villages surrounded by mountains. The difference is that there are children with blood lead levels three times higher than the legal limit, contaminated soil and water, and numerous tailings ponds lurking in the mountains like time bombs.

In 2013, the local government proposed the urban and rural construction management goal of "turning flowery walls into gardens", and mining operations that were once chaotic and disorderly were also integrated in a series of actions. A recent field investigation by Shenzhen University found that as a pillar industry of the county economy, some non-compliance in mining and processing still exists. Under the contiguous mines and tailings ponds, the legacy of poison is far from being eliminated, and pollution continues.

Children with lead poisoning

When his wife gave birth to her third child, Wu Zhihua discussed with the family planning staff: "Our second child is in poor health, can we be exempted from paying the fine?" The second son suffers from epilepsy and short stature, and his father Wu Zhihua knows very well that this is inseparable from the lead-zinc mine in the village.

Wu Zhihua is a mining truck driver. His home and work are in Dongli Village, Maoer Township, Huayuan County. Three years ago, two boys in the family were diagnosed with "moderate childhood lead poisoning." According to my country's blood lead diagnostic standards: the normal level of lead content in children's blood should be 0-99 micrograms/liter. Wu Zhihua's youngest son's highest value was 413 micrograms per liter, which was three times higher than the limit.

Initially, the villagers did not realize that the pollution had invaded the children's bodies. Mining in Dongli Village has been going on for about 20 years. Villagers have noticed falling water levels, increased dust and possible impacts on crops, but little thought has been given to health concerns.

The testing controversy began in 2014. The only outsider in the village, a Wenzhou native who specializes in repairing tires for mining trucks, discovered that his child was developing late. After a check-up at the hospital in 2014, he was found to have excessive blood lead.

At this point, the villagers became aware of the danger. Wang Enze, a villager in Dongli Village, recalled that at that time, 54 children under the General Administration had examinations, and the results showed that all blood lead exceeded the standard.

After realizing the seriousness of the problem, the Huayuan County Disease Control Department sent people to the village to draw blood tests for children. The government twice chartered buses for the children to go to the hospital affiliated with the Hunan Provincial Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Institute for treatment, and borne the medical expenses. But according to villagers, the government took no further action after that.

Regarding the incident of blood lead exceeding the standard, a reporter from Shenzhen once asked whether the village had received relevant compensation from the mining company. Wang Enze waved his hand and made a gesture of stuffing his pocket: "The relationship behind it is complicated."

< p>△ In Laowangzhai Village, Tuanjie Town, most villagers buy bottled water to drink

Wu Zhihua communicated with relevant local departments at the end of 2016, and the other party said, "The government has no funds now, so we will wait until after the New Year." . A year has passed, and the villagers have not waited for a reply. The hospital in the province once called and urged to take the child for a review, but Wu Zhihua did not go because he had no money.

Wu Zhihua has a family of seven. His father is paralyzed, his mother cooks and farms, and his wife takes care of their three children in school in the town. He is the only labor force in the family, and he only earns 4,000 to 5,000 yuan a month at most by driving. Yuan, barely covering the family's daily expenses.

Although he is suffering from pollution, Wu Zhihua still cannot leave the mining factory. He has to work to earn money.

Among the test orders kept by Wu Zhihua’s family, the earliest one came from the Hunan Provincial Children’s Hospital. It was August 2014. He took his second son to Changsha for a checkup at his own expense. At that time, the blood lead level was 235 micrograms/liter.

In October 2014, the Huayuan County Center for Disease Control and Prevention tested Wu Zhihua’s second son’s blood lead level at 413 micrograms/liter. In September 2015, this number became 404 micrograms/liter, which was still three times higher than the standard. During this year, the child had received two courses of lead-removing treatment. The advice column on the diagnosis certificate clearly stated: "Avoid contact with lead pollution, and recheck blood lead after one month."

Now two years have passed, and the lead-zinc mine next to the village is operating as usual, and the child’s reexamination has never been done again.

"Home is here, where can I go?" Wu Zhihua's words were full of helplessness.

△The test sheet of Wu Zhihua’s second son showed that the blood lead content in his body exceeded the standard by three times?

Contaminated water, soil and rice

21 kilometers away from Dongli Village In Laowangzhai Village, Tuanjie Town, Liu Xiuxiu posted a video on October 24 in Moments. In the picture, a stream of white water flows down from a high place. She was afraid that people outside the village would not believe it, so she specifically explained that it was taken on the spot that morning, and added a question: "How can people survive in this water?"

Laowangzhai Village is located on the mountainside , when the villagers raised their heads, they could see the gray mining area between the green mountains, where the water flowed down. For a long time, villagers have brought mountain spring water to their homes. After the mine was developed, they found that the drinking water had changed.

It is usually better. If it rains, there will always be garbage flowing out of the water pipes, and the water may even turn white. The villagers attribute this to tailings water pollution. An old man confided to a Shenzhen reporter: "No kidding, this is medicine we drink."

In the mountains, the tailings that flow down after the ore is washed and processed are thicker and grayer in color. , which contains both mineral processing chemicals and lime, flows continuously to the nearby tailings pond every day. Villagers believe that some mining companies did not set up protective measures in accordance with regulations, causing tailings water to contaminate drinking water sources.

Villager Wang Chengwei carefully calculated that there are a total of five tailings ponds in the surrounding area that can affect his village, belonging to several major industry players such as Haifeng Company.

Today, most villagers still use water flowing from the mountains to wash vegetables and cook, and drink bottled water that costs 8 yuan a barrel. Many villagers have installed water purifiers at home at their own expense, and some have specially purchased portable water quality testing pens.

They use the "points" displayed on the test pen to distinguish the quality of water. The water filtered by the water purifier is displayed as 006, which the villagers call "6 points", while the water flowing down the mountain is 297 points. Although the value of 297 is high, it does not exceed the relevant national standards. What the villagers don't know is that the ppm after the number is the unit of water hardness, which refers to the concentration of calcium and magnesium ions in the water. Heavy metal elements such as lead and mercury cannot be measured with a test pen.

△ In Laowangzhai Village, Tuanjie Town, some villagers bought water quality testing pens

Villager Wu Xiuqin recalled that the water purifier company also conducted testing when they came to promote it. The value at that time was More than 400, and the measurement results will be different after raining and on sunny days. Wu Xiuqin believes that she and several other elderly people in the village got stones and it was related to long-term drinking of water with high points.

In addition to drinking water, soil and crops around mining areas are generally affected. Chen Nengchang, a soil remediation expert and researcher at the Guangdong Institute of Ecological Environment Technology, analyzed that if the tailings spread into the surrounding environment through flying dust, wastewater, waste residue, etc., some heavy metal elements may enter the water body or soil, and then pass through drinking water and food Deposited in the human body, a typical case is the "Itai-itai disease" caused by cadmium-contaminated rice fields in Japan's Jintsu River. Pollution also exists in rice fields around many mines in my country.

At the annual meeting of the "Health, Environment and Development Forum" held in Beijing in November this year, Hu Yuming, an expert from the Hunan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, announced relevant research results. He conducted a special monitoring survey on more than a thousand circulating rice samples in cities, counties and districts in Hunan Province from 2011 to 2015. The results showed that the average cadmium exceeding rate of rice was 24.3%."

Hu Yuming's team also conducted a The survey conducted epidemiological surveys and physical examinations on selected people in Hunan Province (918 valid samples), and collected biological samples such as urine and blood to detect the cadmium content in the specimens. The results showed that chronic mild cadmium poisoning occurred. As high as 79.09%.

Cadmium in rice is generally believed to come from contaminated soil.

Hu Yuming pointed out in the data: Metal mining is one of the causes of soil cadmium pollution in Hunan Province, the "hometown of non-ferrous metals". During mining, acidic mine wastewater is produced, containing a large amount of cadmium ions. The wastewater enters rivers and soil, causing heavy metals. pollute.

In July this year, an environmental protection organization went to Huayuan County for research, collected 10 samples from 5 villages around the mining area, compared the samples from two non-mining areas in the border towns, and then submitted them to a third-party independent Laboratory testing.

The test results showed that in the soil of villages around the mining area, four heavy metal elements, including arsenic, cadmium, lead, and zinc, exceeded the standard. The exceedance rate of each element was more than 80%, among which cadmium and The exceedance rate of zinc was 100%, and the maximum exceedance of cadmium was 87.8 times. In the control group, the lead and zinc content in the soil in the non-mining area did not exceed the standard, and the remaining two items did not exceed the standard value by more than 1 times.

Among the above-mentioned tests, regarding the grain item, the test results in villages around the mining area showed that three heavy metal elements such as arsenic, lead, and chromium exceeded the standard, but the cadmium element did not exceed the standard. Among them, the chromium element exceeded the standard rate by 100%, and the lead element exceeded the standard by up to 6 times. In contrast, among the samples in Biancheng Town, only chromium exceeded the standard by 0.25 times, and the rest did not exceed the standard or lacked relevant industry standards.

△Tailings water continuously flows down the mountain

The tailings pond surrounding the village

In the opinion of the villagers, the tailings water enters through leakage and other means There are only a few in water bodies and soil, and the vast majority of tailings will be discharged through pipelines into man-made reservoirs formed by dams.

Shenzhen once visited Maoer Township and Tuanjie Town and found that there are large and small tailings ponds lurking around the mining areas. From the satellite map, the exposed mountains near the mining area are dark gray, and one or several white areas can always be found, with green or red edges at the edges, spreading abruptly among the mountains like scars. These white areas are tailings ponds, which are used to store waste after mineral processing. Tailings waste often contains some heavy metal elements, lime used in the mineral processing process, and a variety of chemicals.

According to the official website of Huayuan County Government, in 2009, there were 98 tailings ponds in the county, of which 4 were in "dangerous" status, 14 were "dangerous" and "diseased". There are 13 warehouses. More than a quarter of tailings ponds have no flood and seepage drainage measures or do not meet standards. By 2011, the number of tailings ponds in the county had dropped to 89.

The number of tailings ponds is in a dynamic state of change. Li Jianjun of Huohuotu Village said that some of the tailings ponds around the village have been out of use for many years but have not been restored; some have been closed and covered with less than one meter of soil and then reused for farming, and some have been closed. It was re-enabled after a while. The easiest ones to identify are those in use. Tailings are continuously flowing in, the reservoir is continuously expanding, and tailings water is floating on the surface.

△A tailings pond in use

Li Jianjun once worked in a mining factory next to the village. In his opinion, the mining industry is "very deep", with mines changing hands back and forth between bosses, and "big ones eating small ones" happening from time to time. Some owners have mines but no reservoirs, so they can only borrow reservoirs for discharge. Therefore, the wastewater from some tailings ponds comes from several companies.

A deep investigation in Yanhuotu Village, Biancheng Town, found that the largest tailings pond nearby was close to the peak, with trees submerged in it on one side of the mountain, and no protective measures were seen on the inside of the mountain. According to a worker at the site, the tailings pond belongs to Haifeng Company and has been in use for more than ten years. The accumulation depth is more than 80 meters.

This type of giant tailings pond is like a barrier lake, with risks of dam failure and leakage. From a safety perspective, they are man-made debris flow hazards with high potential energy, lurking in the mountains like time bombs.

In September 2008, a tailings dam failure occurred in Xiangfen, Shanxi Province, resulting in 277 deaths, 4 missing persons, and 33 injuries. In 2010, a dam burst occurred in Huayuan County, killing six people. After that, the local government strengthened the management of tailings ponds and established a responsibility system for flood control and flood control. County leaders were responsible for one-to-one responsibility for key tailings ponds.

Chen Nengchang analyzed that if the tailings pond is not properly managed, risks such as leakage, collapse, and debris flows may occur. If it is constructed and maintained in full accordance with standards, the risk of related geological disasters will be much smaller.

Behind the tailings ponds is the mineral industry that has created huge economic benefits. Their existence also changes the life trajectory of surrounding villagers.

At the entrance of Huohuo Tu Village, a rendering of the relocation plan is posted on the wall. It is expected that the entire village population will move out in 2018, but the villagers are not sure when they will move. Li Jianjun understood that their village was located in a goaf area and could not be relocated. However, he noticed that there were no words related to mining in the plan, and it was marked as "relocation poverty alleviation and resettlement project."

The relocation renderings are facing a road. When a truck transporting lead and zinc powder passes by, the villagers stop the truck here and ask the driver to collect a "soil erosion fee" of 250 yuan per trip.

"Ore transport trucks are not blocked, only trucks transporting products (lead and zinc powder)." Li Jianjun did not explain the reason, only saying that the boss of the mining company had instructed the driver to pay. At the end of the day, there is no fixed number of times you can stop someone. Villagers participated voluntarily, and at most there were more than 40 people. The money for a car would not exceed 10 yuan per person.

△Bian Town, a tailings pond in Huohuotu Village

Dripping lead and zinc powder

On the way from Longtan Town to Huayuan County, transportation There is an endless stream of vehicles carrying ore powder. There are often still black and gray stains on the back doors of trucks, and shade nets tightly cover the cabin. They drove out from the mineral processing plant, dripping all the way, to the processing plant located on the outskirts of the county.

Wang Gui, a villager in Dongli Village, is wary of the black and silver colors on the road. It's easy to tell the difference between the two: the black one is lead, and the silvery gray one is zinc. There are five mining areas around their village, belonging to three companies including Taifeng Mining. Dozens of vehicles transporting zinc powder and lead powder drive out from here every day.

Wang Gui’s home is on the roadside, and transport trucks drive by continuously during the day. He built a circle around the house with a plastic shed covered with dust. On the cement pavement in front of the door, two kinds of liquid, black and gray, are clearly visible. When the amount is small, it gathers into a puddle. When the amount is large, it flows downwards along the terrain.

△In Dongli Village, there are rice fields next to the road. The dust scattered by the transport truck fell on the plants

Previously, Wang Gui was a small boss of a mine. After encountering the mining price After the decline and industry consolidation, he went bankrupt and changed careers.

Wang Gui, who is familiar with the mining industry, pointed to the dust on the ground and told Shenyi: These come from a concentrator not far away and will be transported to factories on the outskirts of the city for further processing. Even for primary products, the purity of these lead powder and zinc powder is above 50%. He firmly believes that this is the reason why his grandson's blood lead exceeded the standard. "The child was playing on the road, and such a high concentration of lead powder was absorbed into the body. How could it not exceed the standard?"

A video shot by Wang Gui showed , the transport truck driving out of Dongli Village leaked all the way, and the ground was covered with black stains. Shenzhen once consulted a senior person in the lead-zinc mining industry about this, and he said: Judging from the video, there are streams of water flowing out during the transportation process, indicating that the mineral processing plant adopts a sedimentation tank-type dehydration method, and the moisture content is visually measured at 20 % to 25%. The moisture of the mineral powder filtered out by the filter will be controlled below 15%, and the water will basically not be squeezed out during transportation.

The above-mentioned senior person said that the country currently does not have a clear specification in this regard, and the specifications in the industry generally require the moisture content to be controlled below 20%. Some smaller enterprises may not purchase filtration equipment and directly adopt the method of artificially adding sedimentation tanks.

After an in-depth on-the-spot visit to many mining areas in Maoer Township, Longtan Town, and Tuanjie Town, we found that the ore powder transport trucks were leaking while driving. There were many rice fields next to the road, and many roads on the roadside. The plants were covered in gray dust.

△Dongli Village collectively purchased water sprinklers to reduce dust

Despite living in a polluted environment for a long time, none of the adults in Dongli Village have had their blood tested lead. The villagers interviewed all said: "Ignore the adults, focus on the children first."

Data show that in recent years, there have been many incidents of excessive blood lead and cadmium in children across the country, mostly due to the place of residence and soil environment. There are sources of industrial pollution. In September this year, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Agriculture jointly issued the "Measures for Soil Environmental Management of Agricultural Land (Trial)", which will be officially implemented on November 1.

On November 27, when answering media interviews, relevant officials from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Agriculture emphasized that soil pollution prevention and control will be an important part of environmental law enforcement. Relevant departments will strengthen law enforcement supervision, focusing on non-ferrous metal mining and other industries, strictly implement emission standards for heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury, arsenic, lead, chromium, etc., implement relevant total quantity control indicators, and cut off the chain of pollutants entering farmland.