China Gets Serious About Its Pollutant-Laden Soil

摘要

He Youtian feels old beyond his years. The 57-year-old farmer is hobbled by kidney stones, as is his wife, who is recovering from uterine cancer. In his youth, He recalls, this lush corner of southern China's Guangdong province was "beautiful and fertile." Then, about 4 decades ago, an open-pit copper and sulfur mine began operating upstream on the Hengshi River, turning the water dark red and tainting irrigated fields. Nongovernmental organizations have designated Shangba as a "cancer village," one of perhaps hundreds of areas in China so pollution-drenched that cancer rates are rumored to be off the chart.