Tap water in Harbin declared safe, but residents wary

A massive chemical spill was headed downriver from China to Russia’s Far East today, as officials sought to reassure residents of a Chinese city that their water was safe to drink after being shut off for five days as the pollutants flowed past.

Experts, meanwhile, warned that the spill’s effects could last for years because of pollutants embedded in river ice and mud at the bottom of the Songhua River.

Despite today’s announcement that Harbin’s tap water was safe, many residents said they would stick with bottled water until they felt sure. In some parts of the city, water from taps ran dirty after the water was turned back on Sunday. Some 3.8 million people had been without running water.

“We still can’t be sure that it’s safe,” said bank worker Sun Ning as she loaded a shopping cart with bottled water at a downtown supermarket. “It’s not that we don’t trust the government but we are still not totally at ease.”

Earlier that morning, health officials said city water met China’s purity requirements.

“Harbin’s water is now safe to use and drink,” Xiu Tinggong, vice director of the city’s health inspection bureau, said in an interview on Harbin’s government television station. “Everybody can rest assured.”

The shutdown in Harbin, capital of the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, had come days after a November 13 explosion at a nearby chemical plant. The blast, which authorities said killed five people, spewed toxic benzene into the Songhua, which passes through Harbin and provides most of the city’s drinking water.

After passing Harbin last week, the 50-mile long benzene slick was expected to reach the Russian border city of Khabarovsk on December 10-12 – or sooner.

Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said the pollutants could affect 70 Russian cities and villages with a total of over 1 million residents along the Amur river, into which the Songhua flows.

Chinese newspapers said a team of environmental officials from Khabarovsk, a city of 580,000, were meeting with Harbin officials today to study the city’s methods in dealing with the spill. Russia planned to switch off running water and airlift activated carbon for use in water treatment facilities to help absorb the spill.

China’s communist government has apologised to Russia – as well as the Chinese public – over the spill. Today, China’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing would do what it could to prevent the incident from harming friendly ties with Moscow.

The Songhua’s spring thaw could bring another wave of contamination because of benzene trapped in thick ice, said Zhang Qingxiang, a professor of environmental studies at Shanghai’s East China University of Science and Technology.

Authorities “should pay much attention next spring when the ice is going to melt,” Zhang said.

Even more serious were pollutants absorbed into the riverbed, including by aquatic plants and micro-organisms, Zhang said. Declining water quality could take 10 years or more to recover, he said, time enough for fish to introduce benzene into the food chain.

“This is going to break the ecological balance,” Zhang said.

Although Chinese media has reported little about the possible long-term effects, fish and other aquatic products from the Songhua were being kept off the market. Drink-makers using water from the Songhua faced stepped up inspections.

In other ways, life in Harbin was returning to normal.

Businesses reopened and classes were to resume tomorrow for about 400,000 primary and secondary school students following a week-long break prompted by the pollution scare.

Despite complaints of lying and attempts at concealment, authorities have defended their handling of the disaster. While officials have promised greater accountability over recurrent public health scares like bird flu, they deeply fear the unrest embodied by growing protests over endemic corruption and inaction against pollution.

Harbin’s disaster also highlighted the costs of China’s breakneck economic development, which has lifted millions out of poverty but left environmental protections in shambles.

Many of the city’s residents remained wary of government assurances.

“It’s coming out, but we don’t dare use it,” said chef Jin Zhonghua, standing over a pot of dumplings at the Jinshan Restaurant where bottled water - not tap – was being used for steaming.