Recently, a video circulating online shows a local chemical factory in Leping City, Jingdezhen City, Jiangxi Province, once again discharging pollutants, causing severe air pollution with a strong odor lingering in the air. Dead fish can be seen floating in the river, and the drinking water of residents has been heavily contaminated, directly affecting people’s health.
The video captured on the night of May 29, in the Le’an River Basin in Namekou Town, Leping City, Jingdezhen, showed a large number of dead fish on the riverbank. Residents suspect that a certain enterprise in Dexing is discharging pollutants into the Le’an River, with white foam and dead fish floating on the surface of the river.
Le’an River is a tributary of Raohe, one of the upstream main streams of Poyang Lake in the Yangtze River Basin. It flows east to west through the entire Leping City, passing through the northwest of Dexing and entering Leping from Daicun, Namekou Town, with a total length of 279 kilometers, 83.2 kilometers of which flow through Leping City, covering an area of 1944 square kilometers.
Residents have reported the issue multiple times, and after inspections by higher authorities, the emissions would temporarily cease for a few days and then resume. Some citizens have taken to social media to raise awareness, hoping for more attention. A blogger named “Yulie Qige,” who has nearly 2 million followers on an online platform, conducted an on-site investigation of the industrial park’s waste gas emissions in mid-May this year.
In the video, Yulie Qige mentioned that the smell was very strong, with a pungent odor that was pervasive around the factory area, which is close to many villages and just across a river from the residential area. The nighttime emissions of waste gas made the surrounding villagers reluctant to even open their windows. Local residents reported that they could smell the pungent odor almost daily recently, prompting some to consider selling their homes. This industrial pollution not only affects the daily lives of residents but also poses a serious threat to their health. Yulie Qige also reported the pollution situation to the local government before leaving.
According to official reports, the Ecological Environment Department of Leping City in Jingdezhen conducted an investigation into some enterprises in the Leping Industrial Park regarding excessive emissions of waste gas. On May 17th, the investigation results revealed that seven companies, including Jixiang Chemical and Hongze Chemical, were found to have exceeded the emission standards of waste gas. These companies were ordered to rectify the issue immediately, with five of them being investigated and two companies ordered to cease production and rectify the situation from midnight on May 18th.
A resident named Fang Qi (pseudonym) from Lelin Town, Leping City, Jiangxi, told Epoch Times, “The smell coming from the direction of Huangbaishan from Lelin Town is very pungent, indescribable, and unbearable. The day before yesterday on the Dragon Boat Festival, I went around the Taishan Industrial Park area, and the odor there was very unpleasant. There is heavy illegal discharge from factories at night, and during the day, the smell persists, making it unbearable to stay there for long.
“Fang Qi continued, “There are many residents around the industrial park and numerous villages. Many villagers have developed cancer, and the toxic gas certainly has an impact on health. Especially for Shijialing Village in Dashan Street Office, which is only a few hundred meters away from the industrial park, the pollution is even more severe. Villagers’ opposition seems futile, as the industrial park is still expanding.”
Guo Hao (pseudonym), a resident of Yu Jia Village in Leping, told Epoch Times that their village is only one kilometer away from the industrial park, with about 1400 households, lacking any protection. They try to tightly close windows and doors as much as possible. With such proximity to the residential area, the villagers are filled with complaints. “Within one kilometer, there are one or two tens of thousands of people. Within three kilometers, there are over one hundred thousand people. The nearby Shijialing Village is only separated by a wall, and the residents are living in the midst of toxic gas. Over a decade has passed, and the villagers have become numb to it.”
Located in Jingdezhen City, Jiangxi Province, the Le’an River flows through eight townships in the city. Environmental tests have found more than twenty harmful pollutants severely exceeding the standards in the river water, resulting in hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland lying fallow in the eight townships along the river and the emergence of over a dozen “cancer villages.” Water samples testing in the area revealed significantly elevated levels of iron, manganese, and carbon ammonia, 7.4 times, 18.8 times, and 3.8 times over the standard values, respectively. Villagers have been diagnosed with esophageal and liver cancer.
Guo Hao mentioned, “Many people from surrounding villages work in the industrial park. They say the groundwater has been severely polluted, as many companies directly pump sewage into deep wells for sedimentation, which contains highly toxic substances, posing a dreadful threat. Many people around the age of 60 have died from cancer. There are several tumor hospitals in Nanchang, Jiangxi, with the majority of patients originating from Leping, as people claim 50% come from Leping in those hospitals.”
Furthermore, Guo Hao added, “The situation is usually a bit better during the day, especially at night when the air pressure is lower or on rainy days. People are often awakened by the stench, which includes a chlorine smell, a foul sulfur dioxide smell similar to rotten eggs, an acidic hydrogen chloride smell, and various other odors. Villagers have reported multiple times without success because the government prioritizes GDP growth, with industrial parks occupying 60%, leading the government to sacrifice people’s health in exchange for economic development.”
Established in May 2003, the Leping Industrial Park in Jiangxi Province is one of the 30 key industrial parks in the province and one of the 21 provincial-level privately operated science and technology parks. On September 7, 2007, it was designated as a provincial-level fine chemical industry base in Jiangxi Province. The park’s economy mainly focuses on fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Covering an area of 1779.06 hectares, the Leping Industrial Park is a significant industrial zone in the region.