Chinese oil firm apologises for polluting water

China’s biggest oil company apologised for an explosion that polluted a north-eastern river with benzene and prompted the government to cut off running water to 3.8 million people, while another blast in the country’s south-west raised fears today of a second toxic spill.

Zeng Yukang, deputy general manager of China National Petroleum, expressed “sympathy and deep apologies” late yesterday to the people of Harbin and others in China’s north-east whose water supply was shut down due to the huge benzene slick in the Songhua River, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The government, which blamed CNPC for the disaster, did not publicly confirm that the Songhua was poisoned with benzene until Wednesday – 10 days after the spill was caused by a blast upstream at a chemical plant owned by a CNPC subsidiary. The slick reached Harbin early yesterday.

Environmental officials have defended the government’s handling of the incident, saying that local authorities were advised of the spill and that nobody was sickened by the poisoned water.

However, the disaster highlighted the environmental damage caused by China’s sizzling economic growth and complaints that the secretive communist government fails to enforce safety standards.

State television today sought to depict the situation in Harbin as under control, showing scores of workers installing new water filtering material at the city’s main water plant. They were replacing anthracite with activated carbon, which can absorb pollutants, China Central Television said.

Meanwhile, another chemical plant accident hundreds of miles away prompted fears of another benzene leak and warnings that residents not drink river water, Xinhua said today.

The second incident was in Dianjiang, a county in the south-western region of Chongqing, where an explosion at the Yingte Chemical Company on Thursday killed one worker, Xinhua said. Nearby schools were closed, and about 6,000 people were evacuated, the Beijing Daily Messenger newspaper reported.

The massive slick in Harbin was created by an explosion – on November 13 at a CNPC subsidiary plant. The blast killed five people and forced the evacuation of 10,000 others. Authorities blamed human error at a tower that processed benzene, a toxic, potentially cancer-causing chemical used in making plastics, detergents and pesticides.

Zhang Lijun, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, told a crowded news conference in Beijing yesterday that the CNPC was to blame for the accident and that the government handled the incident appropriately.

“Authorities acted that day, and not one person has been sickened,” Zhang said. “We will be very clear about who’s responsible. It is the chemical plant of the CNPC.”

Asked whether the company might face criminal charges or fines, he said that had not been decided.

He estimated that about 100 tons of pollutants were released into the river.

China ranks among countries with the smallest water supplies per person. Hundreds of cities regularly suffer shortages of water for drinking or industry. Protesters in rural areas claim pollution is ruining water supplies and damaging crops.

Environmentalists criticised the government for failing to take action sooner.

“Careful environmental evaluation should have been made to avoid building dangerous factories near residential areas and water sources in the first place,” said Xue Ye, general secretary of the Chinese group Friends of Nature. “The local government should have predicted the possible pollution, but they didn’t.”

In Harbin, the city announced it was trucking in millions of bottles of drinking water and digging 100 new wells. The city already has 917 wells serving hospitals and some residential areas.

Canada’s McCain Foods, the world’s largest producer of frozen French fries, said its plant in Harbin would “remain closed until the water supply is determined to be safe.”

“Our plant uses the river, the city water supply. The water has been polluted so we shut the plant down,” said the company’s acting senior public relations officer Loua Woods in Canada. “We’re monitoring the situation on a day-to-day basis.”

US beer-maker Anheuser-Busch said its Harbin Brewery used water from wells and not the river. It was giving away its water for free today to local residents, who arrived carrying buckets and jugs.

Harbin’s deputy Communist Party secretary, Du Yuxin, was among those who stopped by. “Today we drink their water. Tomorrow we’ll drink more of their beer,” he said.

“All the citizens are showing high spirits,” he added. “We have the confidence and the ability to overcome this difficulty."