China oil spill threatens Yellow River

WATER WORLD

China river pollution 'serious' after oil spill: govt
Beijing (AFP) Jan 5, 2010 - Two tributaries of China's Yellow River have been "seriously polluted" by an oil spill, further contaminating badly tainted drinking water resources, the government said Tuesday. Up to 150,000 litres (40,000 gallons) of diesel spilled into the Chishui and Wei rivers on Wednesday last week after a pipeline operated by China's largest oil producer, China National Petroleum Corp., ruptured, state media said. "Due to this incident, the Chishui river was seriously polluted and the Wei river was relatively seriously polluted," the government in northern Shaanxi province said in a statement posted Tuesday on its website. But it said the pollution on the Wei river had been "effectively controlled".

Water quality on the two rivers had on Monday reached grade five, the worst level in China's pollution monitoring scale, after falling off the register following the oil spill, it said. Level five water is unfit for drinking, but can be used for agricultural purposes, according to government standards. The two rivers flow into the Yellow River, one of China's longest rivers and the source of drinking water for millions of people, including residents of eight cities that lie downstream from the oil spill, Xinhua news agency said. On Sunday, diesel was detected in water in the Sanmenxia reservoir on the Yellow River in neighbouring Henan province, it said.

In an effort to contain the pollution, authorities shut down electricity production on the Sanmenxia dam in an effort to keep the contamination from flowing downstream to the cities of Zhengzhou and Kaifeng, the report said. The two cities, with a total population of nearly 3.5 million people, get up to 95 percent of their tap water from the Yellow River, the report said. Residents in the cities have long depended on bottled water for drinking. More than 30 years of unbridled economic growth have left most of China's lakes and rivers heavily polluted, while the nation's urban dwellers also face some of the world's worst air pollution. More than 200 million Chinese currently do not have access to safe drinking water, according to government data.

by Staff Writers
Beijing (UPI) Jan 4, 2009
A diesel spill from a ruptured pipeline operated by state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. has seriously contaminated two Yellow River tributaries.

Contamination to the Yellow River remained under control and its water quality was still within the state standard, officials said at a news conference Monday, state-owned Xinhua news agency reports. Yet there were other news reports Monday that the fuel had already reached the Yellow River, a source of water for about 140 million people.

According to CNPC, China's largest oil company, construction by third-party workers caused a rupture Dec. 30 in a section of pipeline in a Shaanxi city along the Wei River. Xinhua reported Saturday the amount of oil leaked was about 40,000 gallons.

The pipeline transports oil from northwest China to central parts of the country.

"The work on managing the pollution has shifted downstream and the frontline of this battle has been extended. The situation remains serious," CNPC President Jiang Jiemin said Monday in a statement.

CNPC said more than 700 workers have been deployed for cleanup operations and to prevent the leak from spreading.

Over the weekend workers laid 17 floating dams across the Wei River to contain the leakage, and specialized chemicals were being spread to solidify the fuel and speed cleanup, according to a news release from the environmental protection bureau in the city of Weihai where the leak occurred.

CNPC had completed laying the first barrier across the Yellow River and had begun laying down a second and third barrier, state-controlled CCTV said Monday.

CNPC "took responsibility and are doing their best to contain the spill," Gordon Kwan, head of regional energy research at Mirae Asset Securities in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg. "The fact that it gets reported shows that the company is willing to become more transparent over environmental issues."

But the government has not said why the leak was not reported until Saturday.

"It's very tragic," says Wen Bo, China co-director for environmental group Pacific Environment, told Time Magazine. "It's more evidence that the oil companies are not prepared for such an ecological crisis."

The disaster mirrors a 2005 chemical spill in the Songhua River in which the water supply for more than 3 million people was temporarily cut off.

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WATER WORLD

China oil spill hits Yellow River: state media
Beijing (AFP) Jan 4, 2010
An oil spill from a ruptured pipeline in northern China has reached the Yellow River, in the latest environmental accident to threaten the nation's drinking water, state media said Monday. Water quality monitors at the Sanmenxia reservoir on the Yellow River began detecting traces of diesel on Sunday, four days after the pipeline burst, the China News Service said. The accident occurred ... read more

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