The Xiangjiang, the major river in Hunan province, has been reported to be seriously polluted with heavy metals, but the provincial environment protection department said the report is not scientific.

The report from an environmental protection charity organization and issued on Nov 15 said that the arsenic level was 715 time higher and the cadmium level 206 times higher in many parts of the Xiangjiang than recommended levels.

"My team spent more than 500 days investigating the pollution in 10 cities along the river from September 2013 and compiled the report using 164 samples of soil, rice, water and other substances," said Gao Liang, the main investigator of the Changsha Shuguang Environmental Protection Charity Center, a non-governmental organization established in August 2013 and headquartered in Changsha, capital of Hunan.

"The goals of our investigation into heavy metal pollution in the Xiangjiang are to collect firsthand data, establish a third-party database and publicly issue information on the heavy metal pollution, in order to raise public awareness of environmental protection," Gao said.

Gao said he and his colleagues hope the government will soon issue more accurate and detailed data on the heavy metal pollution to let the public know the real situation.

Xie Li, deputy director of the Hunan Environmental Protection Department, said on Tuesday that the non-governmental organization did not take standardized samples and the data it published was inaccurate.

"The organization was irresponsible to issue such data, which should be officially issued by the provincial Environmental Protection Department," Xie said.

Liu Shuai, director of the environmental protection oversight office of the environmental and resources protection committee of the Hunan People's Congress, said public information disclosure is a key measure to control and limit heavy metal pollution in the province.

Hunan is a well-known production base of nonferrous metals with a history as such going back more than 2,700 years. The province has the largest reserves of tungsten, antimony, bismuth, zinc, lead and tin in the nation.

About 65 percent of Hunan residents live along the Xiangjiang. The river provides drinking water to some 50 million Hunan residents and is the major source of agricultural irrigation.

Since the 1980s, the development of nonferrous metal mining and smelting has been accelerated in the province and nonferrous industry became a pillar for local economic growth.

"The crazy development of the nonferrous industry seriously polluted the environment," said Yao Jun, a professor at the Beijing University of Science and Technology who has researched nonferrous metal mining and pollution for years.

As a result, heavy metal pollution has affected many stretches of the Xiangjiang and residents living along the river have become ill with cancer and other, less common diseases.

In June, 82 children living in Hengdong county at the middle reaches of the Xiangjiang were found to have high blood lead levels, according to the Ministry of Environment Protection.

Tang Donghua, a farmer in the county, said residents know the rice produced on their farmlands is polluted by heavy metals, but they have no option but to eat it.

Experts said the heavy metal contamination has existed for hundreds of years and it is more feasible to reduce than eliminate it.

In July, the provincial government started a pilot project in the cities of Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan along the river to restore farmlands and diversify crops, aiming mainly to reduce heavy metal pollution in agricultural products, rather than remove heavy metals from the soil.

Lyu Chunrong and Ma Lie contributed to this story

fengzhiwei@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/03/2014 page5)