2010年11月13日,星期六,6:16上午
Chinese man battles lake pollution中国男子再战湖泊污染
Pollution problems are widespread in China after three decades of unbridled economic growth.污染问题是在中国经过三十年肆无忌惮的经济增长普遍。 But what's surprising about Tai Lake is the money and attention that have been spent on the problem and how little either has accomplished.但什么是对太湖奇怪的是花的问题,并已很少或者已经完成的金钱和精力。
By William Wan 威廉湾
The Washington Post “华盛顿邮报”
Former fishermen skim the swirling toxic algae from the surface of the heavily polluted Tai Lake in Zhoutie, China.前者从表面的污染严重的太湖,在周铁,中国渔民脱脂纷飞的有毒藻类。 They cannot fish anymore, but the government pays them to collect the algae.他们不能再捕鱼,但政府支付他们收集藻类。
PETER PARKS / AFP/GETTY IMAGES匡公园/ AFP / Getty图像
Wu Lihong argues with security personnel outside the Supreme People's Court in Beijing recently.吴立红认为,最高人民法院在北京法院外最近的保安人员。 Plainclothes police prevented the Chinese environmentalist convicted of extortion in 2007 from requesting a retrial, blocking him inside China's top court, the activist said.便衣民警防止勒索,要求重审2007年中国环保定罪,他阻止中国最大的法庭内,活动家说。
Related有关
ZHOUTIE, China — You smell the lake before you see it, an overwhelming stench like rotten eggs mixed with manure.周铁,中国 - 您闻到湖边,你看到它之前,绝大多数与有机肥混合臭鸡蛋一样的恶臭。
The visuals are just as bad, the shore caked with toxic blue-green algae.视觉效果是一样糟糕,岸边涂着厚厚的有毒蓝藻。 Farther out, where the algae is more diluted but equally fueled by pollution, it swirls with the currents, a vast network of green tendrils across the surface of Tai Lake.更远的地方,那里的藻类是更稀释,但同样受污染燃料,它翻腾着的电流,一个绿色的卷须的庞大网络,整个太湖的表面。
Such pollution problems are now widespread in China after three decades of unbridled economic growth.这样的污染问题,现在在中国仍然普遍存在,后三十年肆无忌惮的经济增长。 But what's surprising about Tai Lake is the money and attention that have been spent on the problem and how little either has accomplished.但什么是对太湖奇怪的是花的问题,并已很少或者已经完成的金钱和精力。 Some of the country's highest-ranking leaders, including Premier Wen Jiabao, have declared it a national priority.一些国家的最高级别的领导人,包括总理温家宝,已宣布它是国家的优先事项。 Millions of dollars have been poured into the cleanup.倒入已清理了数百万美元。
And yet the lake is still a mess.和湖仍然是一个烂摊子。 The water remains undrinkable, the fish nearly gone, the fetid smell lingering over villages.水仍然不能饮用,鱼,近了以上的村庄挥之不去的恶臭气味。
Tai Lake is the embodiment of China's losing fight against pollution.太湖是中国的对抗污染失去的体现。 This summer, the government said that, despite stricter rules, pollution is rising again across the country in key categories such as emissions of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain.今年夏天,政府表示,尽管严格的规则,污染呈上升趋势在全国范围内再次在关键类别,如二氧化硫的排放量,从而导致酸雨。 Just months before, the government had revealed that water pollution was more than twice as severe as previous official figures had shown.仅仅在几个月前,政府曾透露,水体污染是以前的官方数字显示,超过两倍严重。
The story of Tai Lake is a story of high-level promises and lower-level reneging, of economic interests superseding environmental ones.太湖的故事是一个高层次的承诺和较低级别的背弃取代环境的经济利益的故事。 And it is an illustration of China's awkward relationship with environmental activists, who challenge the government's authority but are often the loudest force pushing its new environmental priorities on the local level.它是中国的环保活动家,挑战政府的权威,但往往是最响力,推动其新的环境优先事项,在地方一级的尴尬关系的例证。
No one knows this story better than Wu Lihong.没有人知道这个故事比吴立红。
For almost two decades, Wu — a peasant living along the lake, a three-hour drive west of Shanghai — waged a one-man campaign to clean it up.近二十年,吴 - 沿湖农民生活,三个小时的车程,上海西 - 发动一个人的运动,把它清理干净。 He kept track of the thousands of factories springing up along its shores and took pictures of the untreated waste they discharged into the lake.他雨后春笋沿海岸的工厂成千上万的轨道,并保持了未经处理的废水排放入湖的照片。 He mailed water samples to inspectors, called TV stations and spoke out in the face of threats from factory bosses and local leaders.他邮寄水样督察,被称为电视台,并在工厂老板和地方领导人的??威胁面前发言。
His actions cost him his job, threatened his marriage and landed him in prison for three years.他的行动花费了他自己的工作,威胁他的婚姻,并降落在监狱里他为三年。 He returned home this spring to find the lake virtually unchanged.他回国后今年春天发现的湖泊几乎不变。 Now, with no job prospects and few friends willing to risk a visit, he spends much of his time alone at home, mulling over what he has sacrificed — whether it was worth it, and whether he should continue.现在,没有就业前景和几个朋友愿意冒着访问,他花费他的时间独自在家,酝酿了什么,他已经牺牲 - 无论它是值得的,他是否应该继续。
Harassed hero 骚扰英雄
To hear Wu's story firsthand is to witness the paranoia he now lives in.听到吴的故事,第一手见证偏执,他现在住英寸
A short, baby-faced man, Wu, 42, assumes his cellphone is tapped and prefers meeting strangers in obscure spots outside town.短,娃娃脸的人,吴某,42岁,假设他的手机被窃听,喜欢在城外的晦涩点的陌生人见面。 After agreeing to take a reporter to his home, Wu pulls up his shorts to reveal a two-inch scar on his inner thigh.同意记者到他家后,吴拉起他的短裤,露出了他的大腿内侧两英寸的疤痕。 He said he got it a few weeks ago by the lake when two thugs attacked him with a knife.他说,他得到了湖,它在几个星期前,当两名歹徒用刀袭击他。 He points to rounder scars along his arm and his hands — cigarette burns, he said, from police interrogations.他指出,圆的伤疤,沿着他的手臂,他的手 - 香烟烫伤,他说,从警方的盘问。
While he was in prison, authorities put his wife and daughter under 24-hour surveillance.虽然他在监狱里,当局把他的妻子和女儿,24小时监控下。 Shortly before Wu's release, the guards in front of his house were replaced by three traffic cameras erected on the single-lane road leading to his farmhouse.不久之前,吴的释放,在他家门前的警卫三个交通导致他的农舍的单线道路上竖立相机所取代。
His environmental work started in the early 1990s, when he began noticing foul smells from the lake he grew up on.他的环保工作开始于20世纪90年代初,当他开始注意到他长大湖恶气。 Wu, the son of farm peasants, was working at the time as a salesman for a sound-barrier manufacturer.吴,农场的农民的儿子,作为一个声屏障制造商的推销员工作时间。
After he started complaining, he and his wife lost their jobs.之后,他开始抱怨,他和他的妻子失去了工作。 Thugs smashed in the windows of their house.在他们的房子的窗户被砸的打手。 Local police tried, unsuccessfully, to arrest him on a spectrum of charges.未果,当地警方试图逮捕他的收费频谱。
"At first, there were other villagers reporting the pollution, too," said Han Yaobing, 60, who was one of them. “起初,报告的污染,也有其他村民说,”汉Yaobing,60岁,他是其中之一。“ "But everyone gave up under the pressure of authorities. He was the only one left." “但每个人都放弃了对当局的压力下,他是唯一一个离开。”
After Chinese and foreign media picked up his story, Wu became a national hero and by 2005 was being praised by Chinese and international organizations.经过中国和外国媒体拿起了他的故事,吴成为民族英雄,并在2005年被中国和国际组织的好评。 That year, China's highest-ranking legislative body, the National People's Congress, declared him one of China's top 10 environmental activists and flew him to a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.这一年,中国的排名最高的立法机构全国人民代表大会,宣布他的中国十大环保活动家之一,飞到他在仪式在北京人民人民大会堂。
When he returned home, his wife, Xu Jiehua — who had kept quiet through years of harassment — finally begged him to stop.当他回到家里,他的妻子,徐捷华 - 曾保持沉默,通过多年的骚扰 - 最后恳求他停下来。
Because Wu was born in the Year of the Monkey, she gave him a carving of three monkeys on a string, each with a hand covering the eyes, ears and mouth.因为吴在猴年出生,她给他雕刻了三只猴子上串,每一个覆盖的眼睛,耳朵和嘴的手。 From now on, she told him, you see, hear and report no evil.从现在开始,她告诉他,你会看到,听到和报告没有邪恶。
But Wu didn't stop.但吴没有停止。 One look at the lake and his anger just bubbled up again.在湖边一看,他的愤怒只是再次冒泡。
Torture alleged 指称的酷刑
For years he had criticized only local authorities for the pollution.多年来,他曾批评只有地方当局的污染。 And for the most part, China's central government stayed out of the fray.和大多数情况下,中国中央政府留出了战斗。
All that changed in 2007, when — just two years after Beijing lauded him for his work trying to protect the lake — Wu learned that the central government planned to award his city the title of "National Model City for Environmental Protection," praising the very local officials Wu had fought for years.在2007年,当改变 - 仅仅两年之后,北京称赞他为他的工作试图保护湖泊 - 乌了解到,中央政府计划为国家环境保护模范城市“称号,授予他的城市”,大赞吴地方官员已争取多年。
Wu was furious.吴大怒。 He started gathering more evidence, telling friends he planned to sue the central government over the title.他开始收集更多的证据,告诉朋友,他打算起诉标题中央政府。 Within weeks, he was arrested.在几个星期内,他被警方拘捕。
The exact charges changed several times, and most were ultimately dropped.确切的收费几经变化,和大多数人最终下降。 In the end, Wu's conviction on two charges of blackmail and fraud relied heavily on his confession, which Wu says he signed after being hung by the arms for five days and beaten with branches.在年底,吴的两个勒索和欺诈罪被定罪倚重他的供词,吴说,他被挂武器五天,用树枝殴打后签署。
Local officials, who deny torturing Wu, say his prosecution was not retaliation for his environmental work.当地官员否认折磨吴说,他的起诉是不是为了报复他的环保工作。
Just weeks after his arrest in 2007, everything Wu had warned about suddenly came true.仅仅在几个星期后,他在2007年被捕,一切突然成真吴曾警告。
Pollutants in the lake produced record amounts of toxic algae.在湖中污染物的产生有毒藻类的纪录。 Local authorities were forced to declare the lake undrinkable, leaving more than 2 million people without potable water.地方当局被迫宣布湖水不能饮用,留下超过2亿人没有饮用水。 The price of bottled water shot up sixfold.瓶装水的价格上涨了六倍。
As Tai Lake became a national scandal, hundreds of industrial plants were shut down, local officials were dismissed, and billions of dollars were committed to clean it up.作为太湖成为一个全国性的丑闻,数以百计的工业厂房被关闭,当地官员被免职,并承诺数十亿美元来清理。 It became part of the new nationwide push to tackle air quality, forest preservation and water pollution.它成为新的全国推动解决空气质量,森林保护和水污染的一部分。
Progress since then, however, has proved elusive.然而,自那时以来的进展,已被证明难以实现。 By some standards, the lake has improved.一些标准,湖中有改善。 The level of nitrogen and phosphorus — ingredients for algae growth — have decreased slightly. - 氮和磷的水平,为藻类生长的成分 - 已略有下降。 By other measures, such as overall water quality, the lake has gotten worse.其他措施,如整体水质,湖水已变得更糟。
According to government statistics in July, 85 percent of the lake was put in the worst possible category for water quality, unsuitable for drinking, irrigation or even recreation.根据政府在7月的统计,85%的湖泊水质中可能出现的最坏的类别,不适当的饮水,灌溉,甚至娱乐。
Across the country, modest environmental progress in recent years has seen similar signs of worsening as environmental concerns have taken a back seat in the recent the economic recovery.温和环境进步,近年来在全国各地,已经恶化的环境问题已经采取了在最近的经济复苏的后座看到了类似的迹象。
In the face of this bleak future, Wu now questions whether he sacrificed everything for nothing.在面对这种惨淡的将来,吴现在怀疑他是否牺牲一切白白。
"Maybe I should have just focused on making a living, raising my family," he says in his living room, holding his wife's string of carved monkeys. “也许我就应该关注生活,提高我的家人,”他说,在他的客厅,抱着妻子的雕刻猴子的字符串。 "But this is where I live. A man cannot just run away to Shangri-La while his home is ruined." “但是,这是我住的地方。一个人不能只跑掉香格里拉,而他的家被破坏。”
Across the room, Wu's wife says little.在房间里,吴的妻子说,小的。
Because Wu can't find a job, she now works two — one at a wool factory and the second, ironically, at a chemical plant on Tai Lake.具有讽刺意味的??是,因为吴不能找到一份工作,她现在工作 - 羊毛工厂和第二,在对太湖化工厂。
It is, she later explains, the only place hiring these days.后来,她解释说,这是唯一的地方,雇用这些天。
Staff researcher Wang Juan contributed to this report. 员工研究员王鹃促成了这一报告。
西雅图时报公司 The Seattle Times Company
NWjobs | NWautos | NWhomes | NWsource |
8个普利策奖得主 Winner of Eight Pulitzer Prizes
民族与世界 Nation & World